Hellbender - Dana Cameron Page 0,14

what to do, even though I could barely think with the images that were filling my brain, scenes of metalworking and leather curing and forges and workshops, showing me the Fangborn makers of these artifacts. Buell looked like a martial arts training dummy to me, and even if there were no magic on deck, I still had claws and fangs and a heart burning with the need for vengeance.

Slash across his chest—I’d finish what I began, tearing out his heart eventually. I wanted him to know that his death was here, in me. Another slash caught a corner of his eye and would have had all of it if he hadn’t fallen back. I managed to tear the end off his nose, and the blood spurting out muffled his screams, which were music to me. His bad leg gave and he fell; his arm and face burns were still angry and red.

It was time to end it, before I couldn’t. I needed time to acclimate to the rush of artifactual power, but all I required was just a second to kill him. One more slash to his throat and it would be done.

One, two, three shots. I went down, hard, my head spinning. I looked down. More blood poured from my abdomen. I didn’t dare look further, afraid of what I might see.

“Zoe!” Ken-san called out. He had dispatched the shooter. There was no more threat. Just me and Buell.

Remarkably, Buell was still trying to crawl away. Whatever synthesized healing ability he’d had from Porter was still working. I rolled over onto my stomach and felt my insides slosh in ways I knew they shouldn’t, but it was the only way I could move. I raised my hand, willing one last blast from it, one last bolt of power . . . Just one more, please God, give me something to kill this monster . . .

Nothing but a blinding, crushing headache, the sutures of my skull grinding against each other, bony plate against bony plate, with my brain a pool of lava compressed inside.

I tried dragging myself after Buell and managed to get to my knees. That was as far as I got. I reached into my pocket, hoping I’d find something I could throw at him. Nothing.

I tried once more to blast him, screaming, feeling the rage at the futility of it all, the blinding pain of pushing past depletion. He was right there . . .

“Hellbender, I am here!”

The roaring outside and within my head would have flattened me if I hadn’t already been down. Quarrel, a vampire who’d grown so old he’d acquired the form of a dragon, had materialized in the courtyard as if out of nowhere. His sudden appearance and terrifying aspect had resulted in screams from the Order soldiers and more than a few from the Fangborn, to whom dragons were a thing of the distant past, if not myth. He raised himself up onto his great haunches, glittering black and silver in the rain, and spoke even louder, to make himself heard over the racket of his lesser kin and their enemies.

“Why do you assume that posture, Zoe Miller? It does not look like a fighting stance to me!”

Chapter Four

When Buell saw Quarrel, he did the only things possible. His jaw worked, he stared, and he dropped his empty gun, a dark stain spreading across his trousers. It is one thing to know, vaguely, that dragons exist and to understand something of their pedigree and powers. It is quite another to see one in real life: thirty feet long, a glittering bluish black, lizardlike body, with a red-gold belly; thick scales dotted with brighter jewels that looked similar to the ones I had on my body; foot-long teeth, and claws like polished daggers.

I was so happy to see Quarrel that I got to my feet. I nearly tore Buell’s guts out with a slashing kick before I fell back to the floor, totally spent with that effort.

Buell and I stared at each other with impotent hatred. He looked at me blearily across the tatami as if to ask, “What are you doing? Don’t you see this thing over here?”

Still, not quite dead. Whatever Porter had given him had been strong, and I was getting sick of it. There must be some way to counteract that. I must find out—

“Zoe Hellbender, why do you not finish with him? I have much news!”

I bet you do, dragon, I thought, and even some answers for