Page 2 of The Dragon With A Girl Tattoo
The pain of the past pierced him like daggers, but he ignored it just as he always had.
This time, he would succeed.He had to, given that the mage was intending on confining him to the Thirteenth Hour.To fail meant the death of the dragonkin.
And he couldn’t bear that guilt.Not again.
ONE
BECKET
“I’m a good person!I swear I’m a good person!I just have ...argh!...the shittiest luck possible.”I’m not proud of the grunt that emerged when I swung the fire extinguisher I’d ripped off the wall of the train station’s restroom.“I don’t deserve this!I don’t deserveyou!Will you stay dead, dammit?”
“No,” the demon snarled, a nasty smile stretching its lips way too wide for the human form it wore.“You cannot destroy me, artificer.”
“Maybe not, but I can take you out of the game for a little bit,” I said in between pants as I swung the fire extinguisher again, this time connecting with it.The rebound almost knocked me on my ass, while the demon immediately lunged for me.
“Hey, Becket, you’d better hurry or we’ll miss the train to Prague—what the hell?”Billie, the band’s drummer, froze in the doorway, staring with huge eyes as the demon and I rolled on the (thankfully, just cleaned) bathroom floor.
The demon snarled and tried to slash my face with fingernails that grew into yellowed claws, the look in its eyes filled with glee.
“Hit it!”I screamed, twisting my body underneath the demon, narrowly missing its gouging out one of my eyes, trying desperately both to get out of the iron grip it had on my arms and to knee it in the noogies.If it wanted to wear a male form, I was going to take advantage of any weak spots.“Fire extinguisher!Hit it on the head!”
“But—maybe I should call Skye—” Billie hesitated, and for a moment, I damned the fact I had allowed the demon to sneak up on me.
“Just hit it!”I bellowed, making a monumental effort, at last managing to twist and kick enough I got out from under it, but not before it freed one hand and punched me hard in the eye.
Evidently the sound of my head cracking backward from the blow was enough to send Billie into motion.She snatched up the extinguisher that I’d dropped, and hit the demon on the head, providing enough of a distraction that I could roll away.Although breathless from the altercation, I got to my knees, quickly whipping the strap from my bag around its neck, attempting to throttle it while Billie stood waving the extinguisher in a threatening manner.
“It takes ...goddess, I think I may vomit ...a lot longer to strangle someone than I imagined,” I said, collapsing back when the twisted strap did its job, and the demon slumped forward.
“Is he ...dead?”Billie asked, her voice rising on a note of pure panic.
“Demons can’t die,” I reminded her, frantically trying to get breath into my lungs.I leaned against one of the stall doors, my butt on the cold, slightly damp floor, and felt like a newspaper that had been out in the rain for a week solid.“Well, they can, but it takes someone with serious power to pull it off.This one’s form is toast.Unfortunately, it’ll be back.”
“That’s a demon?”Billie’s nascent panic attack faded immediately as she set down the extinguisher and bent down to peer at the crumpled form.At that moment, it disappeared into a puff of oily, nasty black smoke.“I’ve never seen one up close.Are they all that violent?”
I stiffened my wobbly legs as I hauled myself upright, reclaimed my bag, and glanced at the mirror.All it showed was my horrified expression.“They’re demons, Billie.That kind of implies they’re evil.Crap.We’ve got four minutes.Are the others on the train?”
