Chapter Forty-Six – Hunter

 

I rushed into the main room, which was now remarkably clear of people. Amazing how fast a dragon’s unexpected entrance can clear a chamber. Or, in this case, two.

The great feathered serpent and Coal tangled, their teeth and claws flashing as they struck out at each other in a swirl of scales, feathers, and leathery wings.

I raised my shotgun, trying to get a bead on Cid, but Coal was too enmeshed with him for me to get a clear shot. “Dammit,” I swore, lowering my shotgun. With these bullets, there couldn’t be any misses. Even if I nicked Coal, that would be it for her.

And there was no way that was going to happen.

I spun, looking around the room for a better vantage point. Growling at not finding any, I began to strip off my shirt.

“No!” Coal bellowed from across the room, her roaring voice so loud it seemed to fill my bones. “The girl, Hunter! Get the girl!”

Cid was on her in a flash, though, and Coal let out a scream of rage as he bit deep into her tail and swung her into a wall.

“Coal!” I shouted.

“The girl, damn you!”

I searched the room, found the girl standing at the edge of the large stone platform in the center of the room. Perfect and just the way I’d seen her last, with the minor exception of the golden mask on her face. I went racing up a set of nearby steps to her, taking them two at a time.

“Don’t touch the mask!” Coal roared again as I approached her. “You have to get it off her!”

“Don’t touch it?” I yelled back. I looked around for something to grab it with, couldn’t find anything, then remembered I was still wearing a shirt. Dropping the shotgun at my feet, I pulled my shirt up and over my head, then used it as a kind of mystic oven mitt for both hands as I grabbed hold of the golden mask’s rim. I pulled hard, barely even nudging the girl from her rooted spot, my shoulder screaming in a new fit of agony.

It somehow began to pull back! Like it had hooks in her and didn’t want to let go.

Teeth gritted and bared, I yanked harder, pulling with all my might. Finally, it began to come loose. Even as it tried to pull itself back to her face, I fought harder than I ever had. Two more hard tugs, and the thing was off her, flying back through the air until it landed on the stone platform behind me with a dull, metallic thud.

Immediately, the girl began to cry in horror at the world around her.

I spun around, caught sight of the mask, and went running for it, shirt out in front of me. I tackled the mask, wrapped it up in my shirt, and tied it tight.

The girl kept crying, and the temple shook violently again with the force of Cid slamming Coal into another wall. Even this place, built from solid stone, couldn’t handle this kind of fight. No human structure could.

“Coal!” I shouted, holding up the bundled mask. “I have it! Get out of here!”

She fixed me with her burning green gaze, and I knew somehow that she didn’t want to leave. Didn’t want to give up the fight. Because when had Kris Cole, or Coal for that matter, ever given up on any fight?

Cid, though, caught my shout as well.

I was moving before I even knew his tail was coming, leaping to the side as it struck down where I’d just been standing. A shockwave and cloud of dust went blowing past me as I ducked into a tight roll and came up next to the girl, and my purloined shotgun.

I bit my lower lip almost hard enough to draw blood.

Shotgun? Or girl?

No question. I swept the child up into my arms as I went racing down off the stone platform, cradling her to my chest as her tears wet my undershirt. “You’re okay,” I panted to her as I held her close, “you’re okay.”

We raced out of the temple, even as Coal and Cid went climbing out through the top and into the air behind us. Gasping for breath, I finally got her outside into the warm morning air, the sun already beating down on us as, up above, Cid and Coal continued to battle it out in the Mexican sky as I set her down on a pile of rocks, smoothing her hair.

“Okay?” I asked, stroking her hair still.

She continued to cry.

Not that I blamed her.

I turned back to the dueling dragons, shielding my face from the glare with one good hand.

Coal needed help. Desperately. Even from here, I could see her strength flagging. Cid was just too old, too powerful.

“Stay,” I said, turning back to the girl. And then I turned back to the shirt-shrouded mask. And I had an idea.