Jennifer Lynn Barnes Anthology (122 page)

“You think someone injected you?” I couldn’t even believe I was saying the words, but the image of the needle was so vivid, I could feel the syringe’s razor-sharp point. “Who goes around injecting cheerleaders with bloodsucking parasites?”

Kali—you have to—look—smell.

I pushed the voice down and felt it pushing back.

“What about the other cheerleaders?” I asked through gritted teeth, steeling myself against the sound of my constant companion’s voice. “Are they—”

“They’re fine,” Bethany said tersely. “I texted. I called. Everybody but me is fine, and the only reason I never mentioned that they might not be is that it’s not
your
problem—but since evidence suggests you don’t seem to understand that distinction, like,
at all
, I didn’t want you and your hero complex to know.”

Before I could so much as reply, Bethany took off skating in earnest, her form blurring with grace and speed as she skated away from me and toward—

I blinked my eyes, hard. There was nothing on the other side of the rink. Bethany wasn’t skating toward anything, but—

Yes.

Without fully knowing why, I bent to pull my skates off, moving as quickly as I could. I tried to yell out to Bethany, but couldn’t find the words.

This isn’t right
.

The surface of the ice rippled. It cracked and bulged and began to form itself into something else. My breath caught in my chest as frost-white scales took shape on the ice, each as reflective and sharp as the blade on my knife. Cavernous eyes
stared directly into mine, and I realized that my unease since stepping on the ice had nothing to do with Zev.

Had never had anything to do with Zev.

Every other day, I was human, but I knew what was out there, better than anyone. I knew what to watch for, what to look for, and I
knew
that even humans had instincts. If a chill ran up your spine when you were walking down an alleyway, it was generally a good idea to get the heck out of the alley. If you felt eyes on the back of your head, there was a good chance someone was staring at you. And if something around you felt
off
 …

I should have known. Even on a human day, I should have known.

Opposite me on the ice, the creature materialized and reared back, like a horse bucking its rider, and the only warning before its mammoth wings lashed out, knocking Bethany roughly to the ground, was the distinct sound of cracking ice.

Run.

I couldn’t run. All I could do was stand there, an ice skate in each hand, my heart pounding and a stale breath caught in the back of my throat.

Dragon. Genus:
Draco.

For most of our evolutionary history, the three most dangerous kinds of predators had been large cats, snakes, and birds of prey. The human brain was wired to fear them, and dragons—
talons, scales, slit pupils—
sent that system into overdrive. I knew what was happening, but that didn’t keep me from feeling it, and the fear—such a little, stupid word—reminded me that I was human.

That I was nothing.

That I was screwed.

My hold on the makeshift blades in my hands tightened, and I saw the moments leading up to this one, shattered and interlocked, like shards of glass. From the second I’d stepped onto the ice, I’d known that something wasn’t right. The thing inside me had known, too. Even now, the parasite slurping down my blood was telling me to get out, its voice low and silky, like it belonged to someone who was used to being obeyed.

Run. Now.

Why?
I replied, taking a single step forward and drawing the dragon’s attention from Bethany to me.
Afraid something might happen to your all-you-can-eat buffet?

Don’t—foolish. Can’t—you must—
Now!

I’m sorry
, I thought, sizing up the dragon and running through my very limited options.
I’m afraid this is a bad connection. I can’t quite make out what you’re saying. Oh well
.

The monster opposite me leapt into the air and crashed back down onto the ice. Cracks ricocheted across the surface, and I took another step forward.

Objectively, I knew I was powerless, but I couldn’t shake the memory of what it was like to be a hunter, couldn’t rid my body—my fragile,
human
body—of the sense that it knew exactly what to do. Rationally, I knew better, knew that I should turn tail and run, but I couldn’t—not with Bethany scrambling across the ice, close enough that the dragon could bisect her with a single slice of its talons. Not with Skylar beside me, her mouth frozen in a perfect, rounded O.

“When I move,” I said softly, my voice nearly lost under the sound of the dragon’s equine snorts, “back away slowly. Don’t look it in the eye. Don’t draw its attention. You just get outside, and then you run.”

Skylar nodded almost imperceptibly, but it was enough that the dragon’s liquid gaze switched from my form to hers.

I had to act fast.

“Hey, Ugly! Eyes on me.” I moved sideways across the ice, and the dragon whirled to follow, its mammoth tail taking out the side of the rink. Debris scattered like shrapnel, and out of
the corner of my eye, I saw Skylar backing away and prayed that Bethany had the sense to do the same.

“That’s right, Godzilla. I’m the threat here.
Me
.”

My target reared up on its back legs, and I prepared myself for the aftershock when it slammed back down onto the ice. Smoke poured from its nostrils, and I filed that information away as calmly and rationally as I could. There were several subspecies of dragons. Some were harmless. Some ate people. Some breathed fire.

None of them were native to the area.

Based on the smoke, I was going to go out on a limb and guess this was a fire-breather. Not ideal, but on the bright side, at least I didn’t have to worry about being eaten alive.

“Don’t worry—I called Preternatural Control!” The boy who’d given us our skates was either very brave or very stupid. Given that he didn’t seem to have armed himself with so much as a fire extinguisher, I was guessing the latter. “They should be here any sec—”

Without warning, the dragon turned its pursuit from me, and its gleaming teeth closed around the boy’s middle. One second the boy was there, and the next, he was splatter.

I flinched—and hated myself for flinching, almost as much as I hated myself for not saving the boy.

It looks like we’re dealing with
Draco carnus, I thought, desperately clinging to the cold, hard facts and trying so hard not to care.
A man-eater
.

Dully, I told myself that at least I didn’t have to worry about it breathing fire. Dragons were one or the other, not both.

Or so modern science would have had me believe.

I heard the flames before I saw them, and for a split second, I lost control of my body. I couldn’t feel my arms, couldn’t feel my legs, could only feel a hand on the small of my back and rage bubbling inside of me, like a long-dormant volcano getting ready to spew.

Not my hand.

Not my rage.

But somehow, my body dove out of the line of fire, just as a wall of flame sliced through the ice that had been directly under my feet.

The sensation lasted a second, maybe two, and then I was in control of my body again. I climbed unsteadily to my feet and tightened my grip on the ice skates in my hand, angling the blades outward.

Here goes nothing
. I took aim and fired.

I knew it wouldn’t make a dent in the dragon’s armor, knew that I didn’t have the aim or the power or the fearlessness I needed to take down an opponent twenty times my size, but as the skate flew through the air, the dragon tore its gleaming onyx eyes from mine and followed the blade’s trajectory.

Dragons liked shiny things.

While it was distracted, I wracked my brain for a way out. Unless I could get close enough to reach the soft spot under its breastplate, I didn’t stand a chance of inflicting any kind of lasting damage, and Bethany was still there, her back pressed against the side of the rink, her eyes following the dragon’s every move.

I jerked my head to the side, motioning for her to go. She jerked her head, motioning for me to do the same.

If we got out of this alive, I was going to kill her.

Think, Kali
, I told myself. There had to be a way out. There
had
to be. I didn’t want to die like this, scared and weak and unable to even remember what it felt like to be anything else.

Fifteen hours and twenty-four minutes
.

Like that did me a hell of a lot of good.

I told you to run. Don’t make me tell you again.

The voice was implacable and fierce, and the fact that my enemy—who shouldn’t have even been able to
talk
—was ordering me around swung the pendulum of my emotions from scared to angry and from angry to
pissed
. Before I could make use of that, however, Bethany snapped. One second she was cowering behind the dragon, and the next, she was on her feet, poised on top of the remaining exterior wall of the rink. She didn’t say anything. She barely even moved. She just swayed—first her hips, then her arms.

I tried to process. The two of us were on the verge of death, and she was
belly dancing
?

Go. Now. Must—lights.

I watched as the dragon turned its head to the side, absorbing Bethany’s movement whole. I could have streaked across the ice, yodeling the national anthem, and it wouldn’t have mattered.

The beast had marked its prey. For the moment, it seemed content just watching her, but I knew that wouldn’t last. I had a minute at most, maybe less, and I did the only thing I could think of—

I ran.

Not away.

Not for safety.

To the control booth, where I found a pair of employees huddled on the floor.

“Dim the lights,” I told them, out of breath and running out of time, my mind echoing with the broken instructions Zev had tried to impart.

Must—lights
.

Neither of the employees moved. I glanced out at the rink. The dragon, its eyes still locked on Bethany’s, began to cross the ice. Soon, it would be close enough that she would be able to smell the blood and smoke on its breath, close enough that I didn’t have even a second to spare.

“Turn the lights off. Now! And if you have any kind of special effects—a light show, disco ball, whatever—turn those on, too.”

One of the employees pointed a single, shaky finger to the control panel, and I scanned it, looking for the switch. Out on the ice, Bethany continued her impromptu belly dance. She swayed. The dragon swayed. She blinked. It blinked. Any moment, any second, it could snap out of it, go in for the kill—

I flipped the switch. The rink went dark. And then, a second later, a smattering of lights appeared on the ceiling, swirling steadily.

That’s right
, I told the dragon silently.
Swirly, shiny lights
.

Slowly, the beast stopped swaying. It tore its eyes from Bethany’s, and it lay down on its front paws in the middle of the ravaged rink. Its scales—the exact color of the ice—glistened in the uneven lighting. Even from a distance, I could make out the crystalline texture of its skin.

Slowly, painfully, the dragon’s breathing became even, its
mammoth chest rising and falling, its eyes fixed on the ceiling above. Then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, the creature was gone, its body melding into the ice underneath.

Unnatural
, the voice in my head whispered, disturbingly clear. Even though I agreed with the sentiment, I tried to shut out the voice and did everything in my power not to think about the fact that if it hadn’t been for his suggestion, I might not have thought to go for the lights.

Bethany would have been dragon bait.

And I would probably have been dead.

If I had a nickel for every time I almost died, I would have been driving to school in a Ferrari and flying off to Bora-Bora on the weekends. One of these days, I’d cut it too close to dawn or run into a monster that was too strong. With the way I lived, the things I hunted, death was only a matter of time.