Plight of the Dragon (12 page)

“We wouldn’t be holding each other back if we’re in love.” Kyra dropped the blanket and stood up.
 

His lip pulled into a straight line. “I don’t love you.” He turned and disappeared the way they had entered. He’d turned so fast, as if he were running away, and she’d almost missed it, but it had been there, an impossibly small sign of hope. And cling to that tiny hope, she would. His eye had twitched, and he had bolted before she could call his bluff.
 

She wanted to scream after him. Yell that she didn’t believe him. But she was too stunned to squeak out a single sound. She simply stood there and watched him walk away.

11

DISTRACTION

Marcus

Weaving through traffic
on highways and streets had taken longer than Marcus had hoped. It had been over an hour since they’d encountered those men on the road, since Marcus had destroyed them. And it had been over an hour since he’d talked to Rick. Not a single update had been received since. All he could do now was hope Rick had followed orders without a hitch and all the men would be waiting for him by the Market Street Bridge, because somewhere near that bridge was exactly what he needed right now.

Thankfully, the sedan was now close to the portal under the bridge, the portal that would take him to Mystic’s Carnival and Bolsvck. The sedan glided down Market Street, cutting off before the bridge and dropping down to a smaller trail below. With a quick left turn, they were passing beneath the bridge and headed for the small parking lot ahead. This was where he remembered emerging from the carnival portal with Kyra. It had been a while since that day, but he was confident he could find the spot. The doorway that would return him was down here somewhere.

Hopefully, his men had ditched the attack at the Den and were already here, awaiting his arrival. Marcus glanced over Darren’s shoulder out the front window. He could see the chaos and destruction that welcomed them. He exhaled a heavy breath. Somehow Davies’s little band of crusaders had managed to follow them here. A battle was consuming everything. The parking lot, the park, even the little road his sedan now traveled.
 

“Stop here,” he said to Darren. The car came to an abrupt stop.
 

Darren didn’t need to ask why, nor would he. Marcus’s men never questioned his commands. To do so would be considered subversive. Ahead, the parking lot was filled to capacity and beyond. Vehicles of all manners spilled over the paved space into the surrounding dead grass and dirt. And among the grass and metal, men warred. Beside cars, on top of cars, even using cars as weapons. And it was a damn bloody mess of a war, too.
 

Marcus took a deep breath and clenched his jaw. Stepping from the car, he glanced at the traffic on the bridge, then back to the pandemonium. Inside, his gut boiled with acid. His hands curled into white-knuckled fists.
Not the time or the place
, he thought. He wanted to shift, destroy all of Davies’s men, but no one needed the human news reports full of dragon sightings in Nesbitt Park.
 

His searching stare probed the mob of men, seeking his target, the man in charge of the attack. What Davies had done, teaching his screwball collection of humans and lower-caste shifters effective ways to kill or maim dragons, was reprehensible. Comparable to telling a known serial killer where he could find your family members. Marcus ground his teeth and hissed.
 

With the measured composure of a man preparing for a notable meeting, he methodically removed his jacket, folded it, and set it on the seat of the car. After closing the door, he knocked on the front window using the side of his fist. The window rolled down.

“Park it here and stay in the car,” he said to Darren. “I don’t want anything getting on my jacket.”

“Understood, sir.”

Using the tip of his finger, Marcus brushed his hair into place and walked into the battle. Invisibility could have been added to his recently obtained abilities, since so many ignored him when he walked by. And even though he strode with his chest held high, there was no burden there. It bothered him not, walking within inches of men trying to kill each other, by hand or other means.
 

“Finally,” he said between gritted teeth, and grabbed the man rushing at him by the throat. The cool brush of steel slid across Marcus’s side. Ice and blood and bite to the skin. Marcus grunted, squeezed, crushed the man’s larynx, then tossed him aside. The blade fell to the ground.
 

He glanced down at his torn dress shirt.
Damn.
I wanted to be more presentable when I see Kyra, but this will have to do
. Flashes of colors and clouds of dust moved all around him, a new aggressor on the attack. In a breath, Marcus threw up his arm, splintering the skin and raising thick, dark dragon scales to cover. The clash was firm, hard, and set the man’s Scottish dirk to vibrate. Astonishment registered on the handler’s face, and he had little time to react. Marcus’s other hand was already slicing through the man’s flesh with razor-sharp claws. He fell away.
 

“Where is Davies?” Marcus yelled, and pushed on through the throng. To his right, fighting a behemoth, of all things, was Chet. Fucking behemoths, they should know where their loyalties lay, and that should not be with Davies. Marcus roared and reached for two men fighting on either side of him. Hands firmly over their heads, he dragged them across the space, smashing their skulls together. It didn’t make him feel any better. Irritation ratcheted up his spine like out-of-sync scales attempting to slip into place.
 

Covering the distance between in no time worthy of noting, Marcus seized the behemoth wrestling Chet and tossed him across the parking lot. Chet wheezed, wiped the sweat from his brow, and then stood. “Thanks, boss.”

“Yeah,” Marcus said and tried to straighten his destroyed sleeve. “Did Davies’s men follow you here?” The light of confusion and uncertainty flickered in Chet’s eyes. “How did they know to find you here?”

Chet shook his head and gazed out at all the fighting. “I don’t know, boss. Alls I can figure is they have a spy in our camp.”

Marcus’s soul felt dark, and his body burned with angry need to crush any traitor. Then he shifted his gaze to the space beneath the bridge and remembered. “Have you seen Davies in this mess?’

“He was here when it all began. Killed a few of our guys, then left orders with his men and disappeared under the bridge,” Chet said.

Davies hadn’t stayed to fight with his men. Now
that
, Marcus found more than just a little interesting. His eye twitched, brow arched, and he studied the space in which Davies was reported to have disappeared. Not the bridge, really. That wasn’t what drew his gaze. It was the space beneath the bridge that interested him. The place where he would find the hidden doorway to Mystic’s Carnival. And the same space, he was betting his dragon fire, that Davies had disappeared into.
 

From his pocket, Marcus produced a handkerchief and erased from his hands any signs of destruction. “I’m going to the door.”

“Sir?” Chet tilted his head.

“Gather Rick and the men, grab my jacket from the car, and follow me through the door beneath the bridge.” He neatly folded the handkerchief and slid it back into his pocket.
 

Chet jerked back, ever so slightly. “But the fighting, sir. How are we to—”

“This has gone on long enough. This,” Marcus waved his hand, emphasizing the fighting going on around them, “is nothing more than a distraction. Either push back these morons, or destroy them by all means other than complete transformation. Understand?”

“Yes, boss.” Chet started to bow, and then stopped, as if he’d thought better of the action.

Marcus turned and walked in the direction of the invisible door. “And Chet,” he called over his shoulder. Chet promptly acknowledged him. “Make it quick, will you?”

“Consider it done, sir. On it, boss.”

Marcus detected a mild hint of nerves, fear, anger, and resentment rolling off the man. It was a delicious combination. One he hoped Chet would keep in check. Along his stride across the open park land, Marcus counted the dead. Not all the dead. He could care less about Davies’s men. The humans and traitor shifters should have known they were signing up for their own deaths when they agreed to follow that man.
 

But his men, that was a different story. He counted them, quick and precise. His men had fallen, were still falling, and yet he needed them. His army to destroy Bolsvck was shrinking, and he had Davies to blame.
 

No matter. He didn’t need an army to deal with Bolsvck. He was strong enough on his own.
 

Beneath the bridge, he stared at the empty spaces, searched for a hint of a door. It wasn’t a door that presented itself readily. There were endless tracks in the muffled dirt from many who had tried before him. Except, he knew it was there somewhere. Kyra had taken him through it not once, but twice.
 

He wasn’t sure what it was that finally drew his attention upward. A passing car on the bridge, maybe, that was the most likely answer. But when he looked up, from the right angle he caught a glimmer of webbing running between the massive pillars. The spider track was high above his head, yet appeared to make a nicely angled window. There was an old crate sitting alongside the column. Maybe it was there for a reason. Making sure he had firm footing, and that his dress shoes wouldn’t slip off the wood, Marcus stepped up on the crate and reached between the lines of the web.
 

Nothing.
 

“Dammit.”

The crate cracked, and his leg plummeted through the broken wood.
 

“Dammit all to dragon-fire Hell.” He kicked his leg clear, sending the wood crashing across to the other column. That’s when he noticed it. Could be nothing, but in his experience, nothing was rarely truly nothing. And the odds of this something being the thing he sought were increasing by the nanosecond.
 

On the column a few feet away from him was a black line. A simple black line to the average passerby, yet when he stepped to his left the line grew wider, and with a couple steps to his right, it grew taller and faded. The line didn’t fade away, only faded from black to something with depth, various degrees of grey. When he stepped within foot, he could have sworn he smelled funnel cake and midway sawdust. He stepped closer yet. Fun Zone sounds on low volume.
 

He glanced back and made a mental check of where his men were. Rick and a few others were putting a heated end to the battle. Men ran from the fight or died in fiery dragon breath. Chet was grabbing Marcus’s jacket from the car, and Toby was only a stride or two behind him. Marcus waved, watched Chet nod and walk toward him. Chet should see what he was about to do. He should be able to copy and follow. Make sure the rest of the guys did the same.
 

Slowly, like the way he enjoyed exploring and savoring Kyra’s curves, he pushed his hand through the darkened line upon the pillar. His hand, and then his arm, all the way up to the elbow, disappeared. The swirling pull of the portal tugged at him. Marcus scanned the men coming his way, winked at Chet, then slipped into the black.
 

The doorway pushed and pulled at him, twisting and twining around his body like a prehistoric snake. Everything sucked him in, and then abruptly spat him out.

Right at the entrance to Mystic’s Carnival. His men filed through at his back, and he could feel Davies’s men not that far behind in pursuit.

“You aren’t supposed to be here.”

An inferno of rage and lust for revenge, Marcus turned and glared at a man with glazed over white eyes. Crazy old blind codger was pointing his cane at Marcus, as if he used a sixth sense to know his surroundings. “And where is it I am supposed to be, old man?” Marcus asked. He retrieved his jacket from Chet, slipped it on, and brushed the sleeves straight.
 

“Not here, that’s for sure.” Zeke lowered his cane, placed his weight on the hilt, and stood, began wobbling forward.
 

This struck Marcus as funny, the idea that a broken, old man thought he could tell him what to do. A laugh bubbled up Marcus’s windpipe.
 

“What should we do, boss?” Chet asked.

“Find both Bolsvck and Davies. They’re here somewhere. If anyone gets in your way, strike them down.” Marcus said the last part in a matter-of-fact way. As if the task were as simple as slicing bread. The roar and clatter of fighting rose behind him, the signal Davies’s men had not only reached the gate, but had managed to break through to the carnival.
 

Marcus started toward Zeke. “It doesn’t matter what you think, old man. We’re already here. And we’re not leaving until we get what we came for.”

Something close to rage pressed into Zeke’s brows, molded to the lines of his face, but if Marcus had to describe the expression, he’d have called it parental and protective, which scratched at Marcus’s curiosity.
What is the old man protecting? The damn carnival?
But then the cane shot into the air and shook vigorously in Zeke’s hand. The old man charged. Any speck of curiosity fled.