I knew something was wrong as soon as I realized Gabrielle hadn’t followed Janet and Mickey to her grandmother’s suite where they explained what the Earth entity had told them.

I barely heard them, expecting Gabrielle to run in and join us at any moment, saying she’d been caught up in a quick baccarat game or saving someone’s life, or something.

Any moment now.

I knew in my bones she wasn’t coming, but no one else seemed to notice. They were too focused on Janet’s tale, too worried about what to do.

I saw Titus slip away once he’d taken in the gist of Janet and Mick’s story. I followed, but lost him when the elevator doors closed on him before I was halfway down the hall.

Didn’t matter. I could guess where he was going.

Thunder greeted me as I stepped out of the C. No one looked worried, or even reached for umbrellas. In this dry desert, thunderstorms didn’t always bring rain.

The skies had been bright and clear all day, with no hint of clouds. Now they boiled up over the mountains and streamed across the desert, blotting out the sun and sending cold shadows over the city.

Again, no one panicked. Storms blew up fast out here.

I grabbed a taxi and told the driver to take me as fast as he could to the hotel where Janet and Gabrielle had first stayed. I knew Gabrielle had gone there, to the arena, to scope it out for a reason.

I reached the hotel, throwing twenties at the driver as I raced out of the taxi, and charged inside.

The casino was full of people, but they were milling about, focused on finding a slot machine that paid out or heading for the spa or one of the fine-dining restaurants. The rubble-filled hole in the floor had been cordoned off, and guests and staff went about their business as usual. Las Vegas rolled on.

I strode straight through the casino to the maintenance corridors Amos’s friend had showed us and to the stairs leading down to the sub-sub-basements.

I passed through an archway to the arena floor just as Titus vaulted down from the first row above and Gabrielle spread her arms, white light emanating from her hands.

“Stop her!” I yelled at Titus—I was too far away. “Gabrielle, no! You can’t fight it alone.”

She smiled at me through the radiance. “I won’t be alone.”

The light swirled around her, faster and faster, until they became a whirlwind—a vortex.

“Shit,” Titus said, dancing back.

Gabrielle raised her arms, her dark hair flying, as she channeled the whirlwind straight down her body and through her feet. The sands spun away with a grating hiss, the Earth groaned, and a hole opened beneath her.

I snarled and hurled myself at her, but Gabrielle rose out of my reach, the opening beneath her spreading as she floated over it. I knew exactly what she was doing, and the little smile on her face confirmed it.

There was a sharp, cracking sound, and then a maw to Beneath opened.

“Hey, Earth entity!” Gabrielle yelled to the ceiling. “Come and get it!”

The impact of the vortex flung Titus and me to the far wall. As soon as I gained my feet, I shucked my T-shirt and scrambled out of my jeans. This arena was massive—plenty of room for a dragon, maybe two.

Gabrielle was dancing on light. The building shook, but I wasn’t sure if that was because of the hole or the storm outside.

A piercing scream cut the air, but it hadn’t come from Gabrielle. A flash of light emanated from her hand, one so brilliant I had to screw my eyes shut against it. I pried them open again in time to see her throw something into the air, a piece of glass—or a mirror.

“Catch, Titus!” she called.

Titus, his eyes blazing black, reached out to grab it. I leapt forward, shoved him aside, and caught the shard in my hand.

Gabrielle’s eyes widened. “No! Colby, throw it down!”

The instant before I’d decided to make the catch, I’d realized her plan, and why she’d wanted Titus to grab the shard of magic mirror.

She wanted the Earth entity to manifest, to choose a vessel so she could break it. Titus was a powerful dragon, she figured, able to handle the forces, but she could best him.

But I knew she couldn’t. Titus was old, one of the first dragons. If he channeled the power of the Earth entity, he’d be unstoppable. He’d crush Gabrielle like an eggshell.

Gabrielle had a chance, though, if the entity empowered me. And if I had to die to save Gabrielle and the world, well, what a hell of a way to go.

“Colby!” Gabrielle’s eyes held anguish. “Get out!”

Too late. Darkness crawled over me along with the decaying odor of ancient dirt, and I became dragon.

Titus got the hell out of my way. I saw his eyes change to dragon black. He understood what had just happened, and knew that he had to join forces with Gabrielle to take me down.

Especially as Gabrielle hung there, unwilling to act.

“I like this one.” The words came out of my mouth—interesting, because I couldn’t speak in human words when I was a dragon.

“No,” Gabrielle whispered.

“Then it will be easy,” the entity sneered.

I struck. Or, rather, the Earth entity did, through me.

My reason and cognition didn’t go away. I was fully me, Colby, Colbinilicarium, the dragon shit who liked to party. But at the same time, the entity’s awareness flowed through me from head to tail.

I felt like I’d swallowed acid mixed with brimstone, and that after a three-day bender. It burned me, pounding at my head and twisting my stomach.

The entity was mindless, a formless being with a burning need to devour. The Earth had created it, and it had been born deep inside magma, burbling to the surface whenever it could.

Miners died when it emerged—they were buried alive as the entity made shafts explode, or they dropped after inhaling poison gas the entity caused the rocks to release.

The entity exhaled itself through lakes, destroying entire villages, or pulled down buildings as it shook the Earth apart. It didn’t always cause earthquakes or volcanoes, but took advantage of them to emerge and do as much damage as it could.

It enjoyed destruction, and it wanted to burrow into the previous world, the Beneath world, and destroy that too.

Dragon fire—not mine—exploded around me. I blinked away the relentless fixation of the entity to see that Titus had changed to his dragon and streamed flame at me.

I batted aside the fire with a flare of my own. The Earth entity was getting the best of both worlds with me—its resolute, catastrophic force, coupled with the agility of a wily dragon.

I didn’t for a second try to fight the entity inside me and break myself free. I knew I couldn’t. Simple as that. Why waste the energy?

What I could do was force Gabrielle, stunned and uncertain, to act. She had the power to take this thing down, and she knew it. She’d figured out why the Earth entity hated Beneath magic, and I understood as well from its half-insane thoughts.

Beneath magic could devour it. The entity hid itself deep in the Earth, but by doing so, it encountered the occasional cracks to Beneath that stung it, woke it from its happy slumber. The gods and demons from Beneath, ready to feed on anything that got in their way, hacked at it until it had to flee.

Thus, the entity woke itself every millennia or so and went on a rampage to destroy any Beneath magic that threatened it. If other magical beings got killed along the way … Oh well.

And I know my brain’s been jacked if I’m using terms like ‘thus.’

I swooped from Titus’s fire and faced Gabrielle.

Come on, sweetie. Give me your best shot.

Her eyes widened. She was so beautiful, my lady, all long legs and silky black hair, dark eyes I could gaze into for days.

She wasn’t a simpering, brainless fool either. Gabrielle could go toe-to-toe with any dragon I’d ever known and then slap down a demon or two and go out for breakfast.

“Get the hell out of Colby!” Gabrielle shouted. “Face me, you coward!”

For answer, the entity made me suck in a breath and spew flame all over the woman I loved.

But she wasn’t where I aimed. She’d zoomed upward the moment I’d focused on her, slamming a wall of Beneath magic in front of her to deflect the fire.

Gabrielle was smart—she knew she couldn’t fight the entity, but she could fight a dragon.

Dragons had been born of hottest Earth magic—we were probably the closest thing to the entity that any living creature could be. If Gabrielle forced the entity and dragon to fuse into one being, she could defeat it, or at least cripple it enough to send it into hiding for another millennium.

Titus had been a good choice, strong enough to stand the entity taking him over, but not a good choice for Gabrielle. Like I said, he’d have killed her.

I was powerful enough for the fucking entity, but I had a vested interest in keeping Gabrielle alive. I’d rather let her kill me and go party with Janet than fight her.

The mirror was screaming and keening from the floor where I’d dropped it. Gabrielle had used it to bounce the Earth entity into me, the mirror having been forged from the same kind of magic.

I created it, the entity whispered in my head, at the dawn of time.

No, the mirror had said someone living at the Salton Sea had done it. Or, wait—it had said its sand came from there, in an Earth-magic sink.

I remembered sitting at the foot of Gabrielle’s bed, watching her in worry, while she’d interrogated the mirror. The mirror had been forged from ancient sands, which now the Earth entity was taking the credit for forming. That both unnerved me and gave me ideas.

Meanwhile, I was made to fly and roll and stream fire at Gabrielle and Titus. Titus had launched himself to the top of the arena and hovered there, as though hanging out and waiting to see how things went.

No you don’t, you bastard.

I banked and went for him. The arena was big enough that two dragons could circle around each other but if I kept a little below Titus, I had much more room to maneuver. It also let me flame him in the belly.

My fire swatted him there, and Titus screamed, rolling to dampen the flames.

Dickhead. He should be protecting Gabrielle, not saving his energy to fight me once I killed her.

“Abomination!” the entity shouted through my mouth. “Destroy it!”

I didn’t have a choice. As when Drake had made me burn down half Janet’s hotel, my lungs inflated with air that would pump up the fire in my flame sacs and stream it out hotter than any fuel a human could make.

Dragons didn’t breathe fire, or belch it, which would be, frankly, gross. Just as the digestive and breathing systems in our human bodies were separate but used the some of the same space, a dragon’s fire mechanism was a series of separate organs.

Sacs around the stomach stored the fuel, which in theory was harmless until ignited. We mixed the fuel with oxygen and used lung power to flush it through pipes outside the corners of our mouths, and the fuel lit when it hit the outside air.

That’s why we can’t spit fire in human form—human bodies don’t have the flame system. The fire we shoot from our hands is nothing but cool magic.

The entity put me through this explanation, fascinated even as I was doing my best to singe the hell out of Titus.

Titus finally rolled down from his refuge at the top of the arena and started to fight me for real.

We circled each other, dropping or rising to get a bead on each other, Titus’s dragon a black and red colossus of fury.

“No!” Gabrielle screamed at me. “You fight me.”

“Sorry, sweetheart.” The entity said, “You don’t get to choose. The point is to kill me, remember? This dragon I’m in is collateral damage.”

That was so not the right thing to say to Gabrielle. I started to feel sorry for the entity.

Gabrielle rose on her magic, surrounded by white lightning. “My boyfriend is not collateral damage. Get out of him!”

Boyfriend? When did that happen? And why did it make me, the free spirit, so pleased?

Titus didn’t wait for debate. He swooped, flamed, and caught me in the side.

Dragon hides are tough and thick—have to be. We live with the equivalent of plastic explosives inside us, which, like I said, are harmless until ignited.

But fire still hurt, and if my skin burned away enough to let any flame inside, I’d explode like a bomb.

I bellowed as Titus’s fire melted scales and cracked the webbing on my wings. I folded them and dropped—wings are vulnerable, and a dragon with burned-off wings is a sitting duck l’orange.

The fall put the fire out, but my hide smarted, which pissed me off. I soared up to Titus again, shooting flame, catching the length of his tail. See how he liked it.

Gabrielle watched in agitation, surrounded by shimmering silver magic that kept her safe from stray flames. She wasn’t moving on with her plan. She didn’t want to kill me.

I was touched, but there was a bigger picture here.

I flew at her, fire streaming. Come on! Do it, Gabrielle. Kill it.

“You can’t win, little girl,” the entity said. “Your boyfriend is my slave. He is finished, and so are you and your kind.”

Oh, please, can you come up with any more lame villain speak?

The arena rumbled again. Gabrielle lost her stricken look and actually laughed, though the laugh was strained.

“You want to finish my kind? You wait until my sister gets here. You know, she’s your kind and mine, all mixed up, and she’ll trash your ass.”

“Then we shouldn’t wait,” the entity said, and struck.

I barreled at Gabrielle with all my dragon speed, strength, and fire. She barely dodged in time, and her magic shield wavered under my onslaught. I went for her again, the Earth entity enhancing my natural dragon power.

Gabrielle’s eyes ignited with rage as I knocked her off her feet, and I saw her realization that she’d have to strike back.

She came for me, my girl, dark eyes sparkling and beautiful. Beneath magic streamed from her, lighting up her body, her hands coming together as she directed all she had at me.

I met the attack with a wash of fire, which was split by the Beneath magic. We lit up the arena, flame and white light bouncing off the stones. Titus zoomed upward and behind me again, taking advantage of Gabrielle’s frontal assault to hit me in the ass.

My tail went up in flames, and I beat the air with it, trying to put it out. Titus, not waiting, sent another stream like a swift arrow at my haunches.

The fire never reached me. A sudden beam of light reflected from the tiny piece of mirror below and batted the flame aside.

Titus flapped quickly backward. I blinked in surprise and realized that Gabrielle had defended me, bouncing a point of Beneath magic through the mirror to intercept Titus’s attack.

Mistake. The distraction left me free to fly right at her.

I didn’t bother with magic this time, I simply ran my dragon bulk into her. Her Beneath lightning stung me all over, but I took her down.

Gabrielle’s body was human, never mind her mother was a goddess. The Beneath goddess had manifested inside an existing woman in order to do the deed with the human man she’d chosen to impregnate her. Gabrielle wasn’t a demon—she was a human being.

Being tackled by a dragon would break all her bones and crush her to death, which was what the entity wanted. Wanted me, as dragon, to eat those bones too.

I infused myself with as much of my own will as I could, and changed to my human form as the pair of us went down, landing on the sands beyond the hole Gabrielle had opened. The darkness that swathed dragons when they changed enveloped us—the cold magic force that allowed a huge beast to stuff itself into the narrow shape of a man.

Gabrielle squirmed under me, her body warming mine even as we fought.

“Colby.” Her eyes filled with tears, her magic dropping away.

“You have to finish it, sweetheart,” I said. “He’ll never stop until you do.”

“Why?” She balled her fists and pushed at me. “I wanted you to stay out of it.”

“To give you a chance, baby.” I kissed her lips, lingering a moment to enjoy her warm breath, the taste of her, her softness. She looked into my eyes, and I knew I’d found what I’d been looking for all my life.

But no time to savor. I rolled from her and dragged her to her feet. “Now, do it.”

Gabrielle spun away from me in rage, balling her fists and raising them to the sky. “Come on out! Let’s finish this!”

The ground trembled. A bolt of lightning shot straight through the ceiling, breaking open the roof and sending Titus spinning.

Sand whirled. White light streamed upward from the opening in the floor to meet the bolts streaking down.

Hell rose and boiled forth. At the same time, Janet the Stormwalker strode in, her hands full of lightning. Behind her came Mick, fire encasing him, and then Grandmother Begay and the woman called Chandra.

The entity looked through my eyes, and I saw what it saw.

Ruby Begay no longer hobbled, but strode with head up, wrapped in black feathers, an ancient Earth being made dangerously unhappy. With her was Chandra the doctor, except she shone like silver, too bright to look at. I felt the entity’s fear rise.

It feared even more the next being who arrived, Nash, who appeared to be a pillar of emptiness. But the nothingness wasn’t passive—it sought, and the entity didn’t like that.

Maya followed barely a step behind Nash. The entity recognized she was human and dismissed her.

Idiot. She carried a pistol of some kind, holding it competently.

Then there was Drake, his huge black dragon superimposed on his human body. He led the dragon slayer on a rope of binding magic, and I saw the double nature of the man—human and demon—the melding of the two and something beyond that.

I also saw that the binding spell wasn’t binding him anymore. He must have recovered his full strength—but then he’d had days lying in Janet’s basement to heal.

“Drake!” I shouted, and then something hit me and knocked all the air out of me.