Page 35 of Awaken the Dragon
Shola had come out of the water feeling rejuvenated. She had no idea how long she’d swum, or how far. A bright light had dropped along the surface of the water like a guide, and instinctively she’d known that was where she needed to be.
Last night it had seemed everything was in place. Bleu had given her the river rocks unexpectedly, and once she’d entered the building those twins had insisted she wait in that room alone, and then Warrick had appeared. This was the moment she had been waiting for, but she’d been wrong. The words to end his life hadn’t come, and the rocks had done nothing to assist.
The answer explaining some, but not all, of her failure came in the early morning hours. Those rocks were fake. They weren’t the ones given to her at the Niger River two nights before she left to come to the Western World. They were not blessed by Oya to perform the task she was born to do. What she was certain of was that she’d packed the blessed rocks into the box herself. Had Bleu purposely given her the wrong ones?
As she stepped onto land hours later, she still felt the buzzing energy in her fingertips, and pulled the backpack off. She would have to find somewhere to change clothes. There was another pair of leggings, T-shirt and shoes in a plastic bag stuffed into the backpack. But as she walked barefoot over the asphalt, she noticed her clothes were bone dry and that the energy that had spread from her fingertips was now radiating from her body in wavy tendrils.
Wind. Fire.
The words echoed in her mind as she stood in an open space that stretched the entire block. The space was packed with old dirt and a chainlink fence with a sign that read Condemned, but there was nothing here to be condemned. Across the street was a very tall building with the words Masters Tower in fiery orange lights. The building was constructed of what looked like the same type of glass at the Office. This one was definitely larger than the Office, and she was certain some type of energy emanated from those windows as well.
She had no idea why the light had guided her to Theo’s building especially since she’d just escaped from one of his fortresses. No way was she about to walk into another one. But seconds later, the answer came out the front door.
A white limousine was waiting at the curb when Warrick walked angrily through the glass doors. He headed toward the limo and she reached into her bag, grabbed the condensed spear that had once belonged to her mother, and stepped into the street. Her fingers vibrated around the spear as she waited to extend it to its full lethal length. Now was the time. Words were moving in her mind, but as a backup, she now had a weapon. She would not let him get away again. She was in the center of the street about to yell Warrick’s name because the lights on the car had turned on as if it were going to pull off, when it happened.
They came out of the darkness and were immediately surrounding her, men and women with marble-like gold eyes moving as if they were in some type of trance. She looked around and counted thirty. Her finger found the button that engaged the spear and pointed tips extended four feet from each end. Something caught her eye, another flash of light. Or had someone waved at her? She looked over the shoulder of one of the beings coming at her and saw Warrick.
Chills slid down her spine as she tightened her fingers on the handle of the spear and took a step forward. He grinned, a wicked-as-hell-looking smile punctuated by the bright white, sharp incisors pressing into his bottom lip.
“Shit!” She hadn’t been expecting that he wasn’t human, but whatever, he still had to die so her people could live in peace.
She took another step and was about to break into a run to catch him when his raspy voice stopped her.
“Now! Take her alive!” he yelled to the zombie-like people chanting.
Shola cursed and started to run toward the car anyway, but a man moved in on her. She raised her spear and aimed for the heart. When he opened his mouth and showed teeth similar to Warrick’s, she threw the spear. It soared through the air with a bright white light, hitting her target and then splitting the vampire’s body in two parts. She ran full speed, jumping so high off the ground that she went straight over the next two vampires’ heads, landing on her feet where she picked up her spear and aimed again. Two women came at her, one from each side. She extended the spear to smack one in the back of her head while reaching out to grab the other by her neck before slinging her across the ground.
Power surged through her, and Shola acted on all the training that had been burned into her brain since she was ten years old and had her first meeting with the mighty Oya.
She’d just severed the head of another vampire when there was a loud howl. It seemed to sound throughout the entire city, bringing an instant chill to the air. That chill was immediately followed by a blast of heat and wind that knocked her back and off her feet.
“No!” one of the vampires yelled, stopping where it stood to look up and then back to his remaining brothers and sisters.
The heat came down like a black curtain, whisking through the night and blocking out the other vampires that had been coming from every direction. An arch of fire followed, shooting up into the sky and then falling like raindrops to singe every vampire in the street.
Loud screeches echoed through the night when the fire struck each vampire, and a foul stench filled the air, burning her nostrils. The ground beneath her grew intensely hot, and she jumped up, keeping her spear in hand and wondering if it was powerful enough to slice whatever this thing was in half too.
“Why is this happening?” she grumbled between puffed breaths, speaking to no one in particular, since from what she could tell she was the only living being left on this street at the moment. Still, the question burned in her mind and a part of her wished Oya would hear her and provide an answer before it was too late.
Whatever this thing was, it moved—at least half of it did—and she wasn’t going to wait around for it to turn and scorch her to death. Shola ran toward the beast, spear in hand, lips parted, an animalistic growl coming from somewhere deep inside her. She was just about to release the spear and watch it fly into the back of the beast when it turned. Just the head, but that was enough to stop her dead in her tracks. The spear fell from her hands and her mouth gaped open as one huge sapphire-blue eye blinked. The beast moved, and when Shola thought the massive wing would have knocked her down, it lifted over her head. Its feet thumped along the ground, causing everything around her to shake, including the very tall buildings.
She still didn’t move, and now two fiercely blue eyes were glaring at her. Shola should have backed away. She should have picked up her spear and jabbed it into the wing or maybe aimed it at one of those entrancing eyes, but she did neither. Instead, she stood perfectly still, except for the power vibrating throughout her body while her mind struggled to make sense of what she was seeing.
“What do you want?” Yes, it was a ridiculous question and probably not ideal conversation for one to ask a—what the hell was it? But she was giving in to the tendrils of fear slithering through her, so she couldn’t be expected to think straight.
It only blinked in response.
In the distance she heard sirens as she breathed in the intensely hot air. It moved, this mammoth beast with wings that stretched the length of a city block, stood still. She gasped at its thick scaled skin and the breadth of its chest while craning her neck to see those gem-colored eyes when it stood to its full height. It was standing in that condemned space across from Theo’s building and staring down at her as if it wanted to say something. But that was foolish, beasts...no, dragons did not speak.
It did, however, hold her gaze as if it were trying to tell her something. More sirens sounded like they were getting close, and more heat filled the air. She backed away then, thinking it was what she should have done before. Why the hell was she standing up close and personal with a fire-breathing dragon?
The head lowered, creating a whooshing sound that drowned everything else and Shola screamed before backing against the glass-and-cement front of Theo’s building. Its head was just a few feet away from hers and it was still looking...blinking as if she should know...she should recognize...
In the next second it took off, lifting from the ground with the grace of a bird and stretching those long wings into the sky as it glided up so far she could no longer see it. But she’d felt it. The heat that simmered to a bearable warmth it had left behind like a blanket over her heart. The heart that was no longer pounding in her chest, whether from fear or the burst of her own power. No, now there was a steady rhythm, an easy flow of her blood in her veins and she was no longer afraid because there was nothing to be afraid of, was there?
Until a hand clamped down on her elbow and attempted to pull her inside the building.
“Come on!” the woman yelled but Shola instinctively tried to pull away.
