Page 85 of The Dragon With A Girl Tattoo
“And me!”Ysolde waited for Baltic to finish destroying the form of a particularly large demon before following us.
I had expected the basement of such an important building to be full of high-tech security devices, and I wasn’t disappointed.The hallway stretched the entire length of the building, various doors opening off the corridor, each bearing not only electronic locks but what looked like retinal scanners.But there was one set of double doors halfway down, and it was there a knot of demons stood next to two people.Around them, littering the floor, were crumpled bodies of demons that periodically poofed into a nasty black smoke, leaving nothing behind but a stain on the floor.
“Why is he killing his own demons?”I asked Ysolde.
“That’s the only way to break the banes and prohibitions,” she answered, tossing arcany at the demons.
Yrian handed me his phone as he started forward.I was touched, knowing just how much he treasured it.That he trusted me to keep it safe had me weepy-eyed, and I stopped him for a moment, pulling him around to face me.“Just so you know, I love you more than I can possibly describe.You are the most wonderful man—dragon—and I’m so proud of you I could burst.But if you let your brother kill you, I swear to everything and everyone that I will hunt you down in whatever afterlife you find yourself in, and I will have many things to say to you.Many.Things.”
He didn’t smile, but his lips twitched twice before he gave me a swift, hard kiss.“Stay back, mate.Do not listen to him.Do not go near him.Do not attempt to glamour him.”
“Andyoustay safe.Yrian.”I stopped him as he turned away, obviously champing at the bit to confront his brother.
He cocked an eyebrow at me.
I let him see the confidence in my eyes.“You can do this.You have your family around you.You have the strength to do this.”
He nodded, then, with Baltic, charged down the hallway, slaughtering demons left and right.
“I think a few spells are in order,” Ysolde said, cracking her knuckles.She began to intone softly, her hands making wide gestures, while I gathered up the slug glamours I’d woven while upstairs, and began to fling them like Frisbees.A few landed, instantly turning the demons into slugs, which Yrian and Baltic stomped on before the glamours faded, effectively destroying the demons’ forms.
“Kashi!”Yrian roared, outright roared, when Bael turned to face us.His form was that of a smallish, black-haired man, but I wasn’t fooled.Even as far away as I was, I could feel the dark power rolling off him.
It wasn’t Bael who responded, however.
“What ishedoing here?By the gods!He should be trapped in the Duat!Didn’t Asfet say he was trapped?Why is he here?”Tenite stood behind Bael, working on the vault doors with a couple of plastic devices, no doubt attempting to break the code.
Bael snarled something in Latin that stung like a whip, causing Yrian and Baltic to both leap at him, their swords singing in the air.Bael took one look at the light sword and shoved his hands forward, a black miasma made up of his power slamming into the men, and sending them flying a good twenty feet back behind us.
I threw two identical slug glamours on him, half hoping their combined force would take him out, even if just for a few seconds, but with no luck.
Ysolde started flinging arcane balls at Tenite, who screeched, spread her hands wide, and lowered her head.
“Mate!”Baltic yelled, a panicked note in his voice that had her checking for a second, before spinning on her heel and racing back toward him.
At the sight of Tenite clearly getting ready to blast us with her fire, Yrian snarled, “Get out of here.Get everyone out of the building.”
“Bael—” Baltic started to protest.
Yrian’s fire burst out of him, but he directed most of it forward, into a cone that hit both Bael and Tenite.
“GO!”he bellowed, raising his sword again as Bael and Tenite staggered backward five steps, both of them hit—but not harmed—by Yrian’s fire.I assumed that because Bael was also the son of Tenite, he was immune to its potent nature, whereas the others were not.
Baltic didn’t waste time arguing.He threw Ysolde up the stairs, leaping up after her.
I didn’t particularly like the odds of Yrian taking on Bael and Tenite by himself, but I knew he would protect the dragonkin with his life.
“And I’ll be damned if it ends like that,” I swore, falling in behind Yrian as he passed me.My hands instinctively reached for the magic inherent in the building, somewhat hindered by all the dark power released by the demons as Bael destroyed them in his attempt to break the magic protecting the vault.
And just at the moment that Tenite released her fire, Bael’s form rippled in the air, a blue crystal held in his hand.For a moment, I thought it was the light sword, but I realized that it had to be the shard of the dragon heart that everyone was so fussed over.
Yrian’s fire burst forth from him a second time as he screamed an oath in an ancient-sounding language.
“Did you think you could best me?”Bael snarled, fire from both Tenite and Yrian erupting around us, filling the hall from floor to ceiling, the pain of it leaving me wrapping my arms around myself, gasping for air.“You are too like your sire.”
The sword swung down in a fiery arc just as Tenite screamed, flinging her hands wide, letting off what I figured was equivalent to a massive firebomb.At that moment, there was a sensation of the dark power surrounding us being drawn into Bael, and then he slammed the shard forward to the vault door.
Silence reigned for a fraction of a second; then the air around us exploded, and I felt myself flying backward into a wall that suddenly wasn’t there.
