Dragonslayer (Twilight of the Gods Book 3) (13 page)

Chapter Fifteen

Jacey stayed in Ragnarok the next morning because Kamis and Raquel were expected to have the summons spell ready to go sometime that day. In the meantime, Aiden, Christian and Fen had gone out to search known caves for sign of a lair, and Jacey had offered to help Elin scour through the books for more information about dragons. The problem was that there was too much information about dragons out there and no way of knowing what was true.

Kamis had been surprised to learn that the people of Midgard considered dragons to be fictional creatures.

“How could you believe they’d never existed?” he’d asked in complete stupefaction that morning. “Every culture on the planet has some record of dragons. Pure arrogance to disregard the old texts simply because you can’t examine the evidence with your microscopes and gauges.”

She hadn’t been able to answer him. What was the correct response when a Norse demigod asked you why you didn’t believe in dragons? She still hadn’t figured that one out.

Apparently, when Asgard was whole and Yggdrasil healthy, the worlds connected one to the other in a more stable and predictable way. People crossed between the worlds, and dragons occasionally raided the fertile lands near the portals that formed at the weak spots in the fabric of the universe. Ragnarök had disrupted everything. Asgard was dead now, in a strange stasis where not even time passed normally. Midgard was only tenuously connected to Asgard through the damaged Asbrú. Muspelheim, where the fire jötnar came from, wasn’t connected to Asgard at all. When she’d said that explained why the jötnar were so pissed, Kamis had gotten a strange look in his eyes, withdrawing, just as Christian did, behind a cool mask.

“Angry, perhaps,” he’d said. “They entered into a foolish contract out of greed and were bespelled in the process. It’s only natural that they would resent their present circumstances.”

“Jötnar are giants, correct? Fire giants, frost giants? I saw one the night of the hunt. It was big, but not that big. Maybe the old texts were given to hyperbole and the dragon will stay the size it is now. A flying lizard is bad, but a flying lizard the size of a horse is much better than one the size of a house.”

“Impossible to say. My people once interbred with the jötnar, as did the Æsir.” Kamis must have seen some of her horror on her face, because he smiled. “Yes, they’ve changed. The geis has changed them, made them less than what they once were. Some say they’re little more than animals now. But then, we were once considered gods by your people, and yet look at us now.”

Jacey shook her head. One thing at a time. First she’d figure out the dragon thing and then she’d tackle interplanetary politics.

When she turned the final page of the book she was reading, she sighed, and Elin looked up from the enormous leather-bound tome set before her. “You could have gone with Christian, you know. If you don’t want to help me down here, no one’s holding a sword to your neck.”

“I want to help,” she said, forcing herself to meet Elin’s flat and unnerving gaze. “And Christian didn’t want me along today anyway.”

Elin tipped her head slightly to the side. “Really?”

Jacey knew Elin didn’t like her much, but she might have pretended to look a little less pleased. “I think he’d be more than happy to pat me on the head and send me home if he didn’t need to keep me around for cover.”

Something flickered in Elin’s expression too fast for Jacey to read, probably approval of Christian’s opinion. Whatever she was thinking, she chose not to share it. Lifting her chin, she said, “Just keep to the picture books.”

Stuffing the juvenile urge to stick out her tongue, Jacey pushed her book aside and picked up the next on the stack. These had come from the reference section in the main library and were all basically fairytales and myth. Despite their piles of books, so far they hadn’t discovered anything that explained how to discreetly rid themselves of a dragon, though they did have a growing list of basic facts.

They knew this one was young. That dragons grew extremely fast during their first year. That they were nocturnal animals who preferred to hunt at night and sleep in caves during the day. That they were born with an instinctual ability to cast a glamour, though that didn’t necessarily mean the creature would use that ability, except for when it was hunting. Based on this one’s current size, it would have only have been the size of a sheep a month ago, when the first reports of missing animals started to come in. Already it was roughly the size of a small horse, and in another month, it would be twice that size again.

It had only been going after small livestock and pets up to this point, but it was only a matter of time before it decided to take on something—or someone—bigger. Only a matter of time before someone spotted it. Before they filmed it and posted the video online.

Jacey thought it likely that someone had already seen it and just hadn’t realized what they were looking at. This was a remote area, but there were people who lived here. Even if the thing was targeting farmsteads bordering wooded areas around rivers and lakes, someone must have caught a glimpse of it by now. Of course, who would see a flash of something out of the corner of their eye in the dark and think,
dragon
? She was having trouble believing it even now, and she’d been close enough to touch.

“They should call any minute now,” Elin said, sorting through the pile. “Kamis and Raquel were able to use its scale to tie it to the fault. It can’t escape now any more than we can. It’s only a matter of time before we track it down. We’ll kill it, you’ll file your reports and then you can go home.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t kill it.”

Elin dropped into her chair. “What are you talking about?”

“Just think about it. It’s a dragon. Don’t you think it’s wrong to kill it before we even have a chance to study it?”

Elin looked at her as if she was the stupidest person on the planet. “There’s a reason your ancestors hunted them to extinction.”

“Because they had no choice,” Jacey said. “I get that it’s dangerous. I’ve been the one out there tracking the damage. And this one’s just a baby. I get that, I truly do. But if we can figure out how to lure it here, maybe we can figure out how to trap it.”

“And then what? Keep it as a pet? The last thing we need is for some report to get out that there’s a freaking dragon here.”

“No one would believe something like that.”

“People still hunt bigfoot. Some people would come see the truth for themselves.”

“Then we make sure they don’t find anything,” Jacey said, struggling to keep her tone reasonable. “We can—”

Elin’s brows shot up. “We? You’re just passing through, remember?”

A denial rose to her lips but she held it back. “Come on, Elin. Just think it through. Christian said you and Rane are supposed to be the voice of reason for the clan but this”—she tapped the cover of the book in front of her—“this is you panicking because a dragon is something you haven’t come across yet. You’re skimming through these books looking for a way to kill it. I’m just saying maybe we need to expand our search a little.”

Elin fixed her with a dark look. Very quietly, she said, “We won’t allow you to endanger the clan.”

“Threatening our guest, Elin?” Christian entered the room, closing the door behind him. It swung on silent hinges, the lock snicking softly closed.

Elin’s gaze remained fixed on Jacey. “If you do anything to hurt any member of this clan, I will personally pluck the eyes from your head.” She turned to Christian. “
That
was a threat.”

Christian grinned. “And people think you’re the nice sister.”

Elin lifted her lip in a snarl, and Christian laughed. “You know, I actually thought you two would get along.”

“We were getting along just fine until Jacey decided that she wants to keep the dragon for a pet.”

Christian lifted his brows and turned to her for an explanation. Jacey gave him the same argument she’d used on Elin, to about the same effect. Christian’s frown deepened with every word, until he was wearing a scowl that matched the crow’s.

Rather than argue, he set the bag of wrapped sandwiches on the table and tossed her a water bottle. “I brought lunch. Aiden and I came back into town to eat, and I thought you could use a break too.”

“Can we eat down here? You’re not worried about the books?”

She looked around at the books, and Christian smiled. “Everything in here is spell protected. You couldn’t damage them if you tried.”

She cleared the space in front of her before unwrapping her food. When Christian was settled, she pushed the issue. “If you’re worried about people invading the town, maybe instead of using the summons spell to bring the dragon here, you could let me trigger the spell somewhere else.”

And then she could publicly discover it. She allowed herself a little daydream about being the wildlife biologist to prove the existence of dragons, but Christian rudely interrupted it.

“It’s too dangerous,” he said. “You’d be out there on your own. Your life is more important than the dragon’s.”

Jacey turned to Elin for support, but the crow was watching Christian with a strange expression on her face.

“It would be dangerous for the clan too,” Elin said. “We can’t risk it escaping from your scientists only to return here. It took us too long to figure out what was happening. With Yggdrasil healing and the walls thinning again. Magic bleeding between worlds and awakening creatures better left in the old stories. This is no more than a nuisance compared to what might be coming. We get rid of it and then we call a conclave to decide what must be done to prepare ourselves.”

Jacey looked to Christian. “Do you really think there will be more?”

“Eventually. Asgard fell thousands of years ago. There’s no reason to think things will change quickly.”

“But you do think it will change?”

He reluctantly met her gaze. “What I think is that this is only the beginning. That we deal with this immediate problem and then prepare ourselves for the next.”

Before she could consider that too deeply, a young man with flushed cheeks and wild eyes ran into the room. He threw the door open so hard it hit the wall and bounced back. Christian immediately came to his feet and stood right in front of her. She had to crane her neck around him to see.

“What the Hel, Rand?”

The boy’s face was triumphant. “We caught it. Fen and Brian have it cornered in the cave down near Cougar’s Cove. I told you we didn’t need a summons spell.”

Jacey had risen to her feet before he finished the sentence, and without a word, they all moved toward the door. A few minutes later and Jacey was buckled into Christian’s car, ignoring the look he gave her as he started the engine. He hadn’t wanted her to come along, but he’d wanted to lose time arguing even less. A crow launched itself from a window on the second floor of the library, dipped a wing and then circled north. Elin. No wonder she hadn’t wanted to drive with them. She’d beat them there no problem.

Christian threw the truck into drive and started off at a speed that made her thankful the town was too small to staff its own police force. An old woman on the sidewalk grabbed a tight hold on the hand of the child she was walking with and waved at them as they passed.

Once they were out of town, Jacey turned to Christian. “It’s my dragon too, you know. My case. It’s my world. I should have a say in what’s to be done with it.”

“You wouldn’t even know what it was without us.”

“You wouldn’t have known to
look
for it if not for me. I would have figured out what it was eventually.”

He snorted and took a corner, turning on to gravel fast enough to make the back end fishtail. “You’d have figured it out when a dragon dropped out of the sky to bury its talons in your chest.”

She braced a hand against the dash. “I don’t see why you’re so pissed.”

He looked at her, blue eyes so bright they seemed to glow. “We’re hunting a dragon and you’re…you’re…”

“What am I, Christian? Not clan? Too weak to help? Too stupid to see how dangerous this is? I see the danger. I say it’s worth the risk.”

He muttered something under his breath and then hit the brakes as he maneuvered the truck onto an old dirt road. “Would it do any good to ask you to stay in the car?”

“And miss seeing the dragon?” She shook her head. “Not a chance.”

Chapter Sixteen

A crowd had gathered around the cave where the dragon was cornered. Christian called it an ice cave. He said it wasn’t very big or deep. Someplace kids explored when they were looking for an adventure. The entrance was so low you’d have to crawl to get inside. Apparently, in the old days before refrigeration, the town used to store ice and perishable foods in there, because the rock walls were covered in a layer of frost even at the height of summer.

Jacey recognized some of the people present—Aiden, Grace, Raquel. She imagined that the crows perched in tree overhead were Elin and Rane and that one of the hounds was Fen, though she couldn’t tell which one.

She knew the hounds were on their side, but still, they were terrifying to look at. Big. She’d had a friend with a Newfoundland, and the hounds were about that size. But while the Dread Pirate Roberts was a sweet, cuddly ball of fur and slobber, these hounds were lean and muscular, with gleaming black eyes and teeth longer than her fingers. Nothing cuddly about them, and in full daylight, no one would ever mistake them for dogs. Or wolves. Or anything natural to this world.

Christian glanced back at her. “You’re sure you don’t want to wait in the car?”

She shook her head and started walking again. “Of course not. I’m fine.”

She brushed past him to position herself beside Grace, who smiled at her as she approached.

“Were you waiting for us?”

Grace shook her head and pointed toward Raquel. “Raquel’s placing the containment spell around the cave now. We don’t want it getting away once we flush it out.”

Jacey squinted at the narrow crevice they’d gathered around. It was about a foot and a half high, four feet wide. “How on earth did it fit in there?”

Grace grinned at her. “I have no idea. It’ll be soon now, though. We should get back so we’re not caught inside the trap. Raquel is wrapping up. A few minutes ago she was glowing so bright it hurt to look at her.”

Grace, Jacey remembered, hadn’t grown up here either. Christian said Grace hadn’t even known she was half alien until she stumbled upon this crazy little town during an investigation. Elin thought Grace’d been drawn here because of her blood, following the same pull that had called the dragon. Magic. Fate. Coincidence. Whatever it was, Grace surely seemed to fit right in with the rest of them. Jacey was the oddball. Not clan. Weak. Ignorant. Always an outsider. She was used to that, though, and she wasn’t going to let it hurt.

Christian moved to stand beside Aiden, who handed him a sword. Despite the fact that she’d seen him use that sword several times now, it still startled her to see him holding it in broad daylight as if it were a completely natural thing. She supposed, for him, it
was
a completely natural thing. This was the real Christian—at ease, confident and in his element. That other Christian, the one she’d met in the bar what seemed years ago—that Christian was only a shadow. It was hard to tear her eyes away from him now. She should have asked for more than just toothpaste when she’d knocked on his door.

Grace nudged her arm with an elbow. “They’ll be fine. Those aren’t toys. They know how to use them.”

“I know that.”

“That’s right,” Grace said. “I forgot you saw the hunt in action. I would have paid good money to see the look on your face that first night. Christian’s, too.”

“You have a strange sense of humor, Grace. Has anyone ever told you that? I wish I’d had time to grab my tranq gun.”

“If dragon scale repels arrows, it’ll repel darts too.”

That was what the old books said, but they’d also said dragons could be appeased by virgin sacrifice and that they breathed fire. So far they’d seen no sign that either of those things were true. “I still think it’s worth a try. It’s wrong to kill it like this.”

Grace started to say something and then was distracted by movement near the mouth of the cave. “Here it comes.”

The hum of expectation was a nearly palpable thing. Jacey stared into the cave, resisting the urge to creep closer. It was difficult to see anything. The ledge of rock hid the interior well. The shadows seemed to move slowly, smoothly, but it was still impossible to say exactly what she was looking at.

The scales looked soft, though she knew they weren’t. Kamis had let her hold the dragon scale he’d found, and it’d been diamond hard, the edges sharp as a razor. It was the way the creature moved, she realized, that gave the impression of pliancy. That made you want to reach out and touch the gleaming surface to see if it felt as liquid as it appeared. In the dark, the scales appeared to be black, but when the tail flicked out of the cave into the weak sunlight of the overcast day, the scales there glittered gold and emerald. The tip of the creature’s nose slipped out of the cave. Reptilian eyes blinked at them from the shadow of the overhanging ledge. The head reminded Jacey very much of a snake’s. She was shocked to realize that the dragon seemed more like the creatures of her world than the hounds or the jötnar.

It belonged here and it was beautiful, rare and precious. The dragon’s nose lifted slightly, its tongue flicking out to nervously taste the air. Christian stepped forward, raising his sword in a smooth motion, ready to strike as soon as the creature extended its neck just a few inches further.

She stepped forward. The dragon’s snout jerked back like a turtle retracting its head into its shell, and Christian glared at her. Grace caught her arm and whispered furiously, “Where do you think you’re going?”

Jacey pulled her phone from her back pocket. There was a real, living dragon inside the cave, maybe the very last of its kind. If she couldn’t save it, at least she could document its existence in some small way, even if she could never show it to anyone. “Just give me a minute.”

She tried to shake Grace off, but it was no use. The woman had a grip like a vise. “You are not putting my husband at risk.”

“He’s not at risk. He’s standing there with a sword about to kill a defenseless—”

She didn’t get a chance to finish the sentence. The dragon flung itself from its hidey-hole, talons extended, wings flapping open like a sail catching wind. Its mouth was as wide as a roaring lion’s, but the only sound that escaped was a catlike hiss of air. As it came closer, all Jacey could see were its teeth—long and slightly curved, slightly serrated on the edges like a shark’s.

Jacey would’ve been able to look it in the eye when it was crouched down. When it reared back onto its legs, unfurling its wings, it was easily twice her height, more when it extended its neck. The tail was as long as its body, and tipped with a wicked-looking barb that glistened in the sun. She very much hoped that wasn’t poison.

She stumbled back, pulling Grace with her. Raquel stepped forward, throwing up her arms and shouting at Aiden, who acknowledged whatever she’d said with a sharp nod. He didn’t take his eyes off the dragon, nor did Christian. The two men edged away from one another to allow room for the sweep of their swords, but they kept the dragon carefully between them. The hounds formed a semicircle behind the frantic beast, caging it as well as they could.

The barrier held. The dragon beat its leathery wings, trying to escape, but was prevented by the invisible wall that Raquel had erected, the same wall Jacey hit with a jarring thud as she tried to back away from the fight. They weren’t supposed to be inside the cage. She froze for a heartbeat, panic momentarily robbing her of her ability to breathe. Then adrenaline kicked in and she pulled Grace down to the ground, placing a boulder between them and the sinuously beautiful, rare and glorious creature that was seriously pissed off it couldn’t fly away.

The dragon batted its wings against the barrier, and each time it hit a spark shuddered through the bubble, a ripple of bright magic that Jacey had no desire to come into contact with. Christian sidestepped the dragon’s barbed tail and then sliced down across the creature’s thigh. It had legs, four of them. The rear legs were thick through the thigh. It touched down briefly, muscles bunching to absorb its weight, and then propelled itself skyward again. Its front legs were nearly as long as the rear ones, but they were much thinner. Three talons on each, slightly curved and dagger sharp.

The dragon twisted in the air and then landed on the side of the rock above the cave. It curled its head down to glare at the men and hounds regrouping below. One of the hounds had been injured. Jacey didn’t know who. Still alive, he lay curled on his side, panting heavily. There was a gash in his flank. Pink, glossy flesh poked through the wound, and blood matted his black hair.

“Why didn’t Raquel trap it inside the cave?”

“She’s the focal point. She has to be inside the magical field in order for it to work.”

“There has to be a better way.”

Grace’s expression softened. “It’s a shame, I agree with you on that. We wouldn’t kill anything that didn’t pose a threat.”

“To your clan,” Jacey said bitterly, even though she understood Grace’s fear. The outside world couldn’t know about the Æsir. They were powerful and alien. If people found out about them, they would be just as afraid of the clan as they’d be of a dragon. Maybe more so. And Jacey didn’t want that. She truly did not want to put any of the Æsir at risk. But it was still wrong to kill the dragon without even attempting to find a way to capture it first.

“It’s time we ask for outside help.”

Grace grabbed Jacey’s arm, her fingers biting into her skin even through her coat. “Listen to me, Jacey. Saying things like that is a good way to get yourself killed. Or wiped and sent home. The only reason you’re here is because Christian guaranteed your silence.”

“He did what?”

The dragon took to the air. A menace in the confined space, it butted its head ridges against the barrier, searching for a weak spot. The weak spot was Raquel, on the opposite side of the clearing from Grace and Jacey. The witch stood, tall and proud, gloriously unmoved by the fight. She was surrounded on either side by an armed guard—one male, one female—both holding rune-marked blades.

The dragon curled down from the roof of the bubble. Arching its back, it spiraled to the ground so smoothly it seemed to occur in slow motion. Light glistened on its iridescent scales, and the wind of its passing touched Jacey’s cheek in the briefest caress.

She could smell it—a hard smell, cold and bitter, like rock or ice. The dragon turned at the last moment, pulling its wings tight to its body and twisting to land on all four feet, directly in front of Raquel. The two hunters met the attack. One swift sweep of the barbed tail sent the male warrior flying. Aiden vaulted over the tail, and Christian sliced at its flank with his sword. His blade dug deep, and Jacey couldn’t help it. She cried out.

It wasn’t a loud sound, but somehow Christian heard it. He turned his head to look straight at her, hesitated and then pulled his blade free of the dragon’s shoulder. The dragon turned, coiling around like a serpent and craning its neck over its shoulder to hiss at Christian before he could recover. She thought it was hissing, but it must have spat something into his face, because Christian yelled and then fell back. Dropping his sword, he wiped at his face as if it was on fire.

Jacey broke from cover and was halfway to him before she realized she’d moved. The dragon turned back to face the others, and she grabbed on to Christian’s arm, pulling him out of the way. She only made it a few feet before she gave that up as futile. He was too big for her to move on her own. Instead, she dropped to her knees beside him and tried to see what was wrong. As she pushed his hands aside, her stomach lurched. His eyes were swollen to slits and his skin was deep red, raw and wet, already beginning to blister.

She glanced behind her. The dragon had taken wing again but was still fighting to get at Raquel. Aiden’s left arm didn’t seem to be working, and another hound had collapsed in an unmoving heap of fur only a few feet away. At her feet lay Christian’s sword. A thousand small runes worked up and down its length. It wasn’t glowing, as it had been the first time she’d seen it.

She leaned forward, grit digging into her knees as she stretched out to grab hold of the hilt. Her fingertips hit the metal first, and she winced, thinking the runes might burn, but the blade was cool to the touch and the grip was wrapped in leather, worn smooth by use and sweat. She pulled the sword toward her, surprised at its weight. She wrapped both hands about the hilt and, drawing a deep breath, climbed to her feet to place herself between Christian and the dragon.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she was aware of Grace shouting at her. From the corner of her eye, she saw Christian crawling away from the fight. Blind, he couldn’t possibly see a thing, but he was headed in the right direction so she let him go.

St. George she was not. She knew that. She wasn’t walking around thinking she knew how to wield a freaking sword. But if the dragon turned her way, she could at least be a distraction. She could give Christian a fighting chance.

The dragon was busy, injured in several places. A slice to the thick part of its tail seemed to restrict its motion. It held one arm clutched to its body, and there was a long wound in its side. Shallow, it appeared to have merely scored the thicker scales there rather than cut through it. The scale that Kamis had found came from that part. Along its legs and arms and belly, the scales were finer. Its belly was darker than its back, but that made sense if the books were right and it was a nocturnal animal. It was only the sunlight that made it seem so brilliant now.