Silver Basilisk - Zoe Chant Page 0,83

her exasperated thought. She had no answer, except the utter conviction that she had to be there. She was not going to stand by while the man she had regained, after so many years of silence and misunderstanding, was taken away again.

As she rounded a corner, she caught sight of two more people zombie-shuffling toward the end of the street, which abutted onto the palisades above the shoreline. And when she reached the guardrail that kept cars from driving onto the rocky expanse, she saw another pair, and another, mumbling along from other streets dead-ending against the shoreline. And not far away, the yellow tape and traffic cones marking off the palisade over the Oracle Stone site. Everybody was heading there.

Before she stepped over the low guardrail, she glanced back at the street. People were busy walking along, driving, talking, texting, but nobody seemed to be aware of the battle between two mythic creatures overhead.

So the mate bond made mythic shifters visible. What to do now?

She stepped over the guardrail, and with no buildings blocking her view, she saw a brilliant golden shape arrowing low across the beach, driving away a flock of various birds. Some of them very big. Hadn’t she seen that golden bird with the long tail feathers—Jen!

“That wasn’t in the plan,” Godiva muttered.

Which meant one thing. The plan had gone sideways.

She was forced to slow over the uneven ground, corrugated by wind, weather, and the occasional quake. Her knee twanged at every step, but she ignored it, and pulled out her phone to punch Doris’s number again.

This time Doris didn’t answer.

“Something’s definitely gone south,” Godiva whispered under her breath, just as she got close enough to recognize Joey Hu among those converging on the police taped area. Already most of the traffic cones had been kicked down, the useless yellow tape fluttering in the breeze as muscular guys formed up menacingly. Godiva saw her spritz target elbow through the crowd. The Cang gang was rallying.

But so were Joey’s people. Several of them ran about with dog whistles, blowing until they were purple-faced as they turned the shamblers into a crowd of bewildered, annoyed people adding to the confusion.

A gap in the crowd revealed Mikhail, who had a cane with him. His face looked strained even at this distance, sort of a grayish pale, but he stood up straight, grasped his cane—and drew a sword from it with a metallic zing! Nikos emerged from behind a clump of people and took up a martial arts stance.

The forming Cang gang faded back a couple steps.

“No super strength?” Godiva gloated, as Mattie’s target appeared among the Cang team. She kicked someone from the back, sending the guy sprawling. The woman spat her cigarette onto the ground as she joined Red, and began screaming at the Cang people, urging them with violent gestures to attack Joey and Mikhail.

The closest Godiva had ever gotten to gang fights was watching West Side Story on stage, but it really looked like there was going to be a nasty one here. Everyone seemed to be yelling at everyone else to go first, or lead the way, toward Joey, Nikos, and Mikhail at the front of their group. But a lot of the Cang gang seemed to be wary of the three men, and others watched Jen flying low, back and forth, above the breakers.

Godiva forced her attention away. She would be no help to anyone there. Any of those Cang people, even denied the charm that gave them super strength, could squish her like a bug without half trying. They were much taller than her, and probably twice her weight.

How could she help Rigo? She glanced skyward, peering against the bright sun behind the madly writhing dragon, and Rigo’s silver form darting, swooping, slashing.

What to do? What to do? She looked around, agonized. Some stared upward, fascinated by the duel in the sky. These had to be shifters, if they were able to see Rigo and that evil red dragon. Some watched the opposite group as they readied fists and some hastily snatched up sticks and other weapons.

Cang.

Godiva peered upward again, her eyes tearing from the sunlight. Whoa. Rigo’s gorgeous basilisk, and the evil red dragon, were a whole lot closer—almost overhead, maybe two hundred feet up. She couldn’t take her eyes away from Rigo, whose claws, beak, and tail slashed at the incredibly long dragon, his wings kiting him this way, that, keeping him out of the dragon’s reach.

The two drifted closer and