Page 27 of The Last Slayer
He nodded and gestured at me to go. The traffic was lighter after the checkpoint, and I raised the window and drove off. I-66 was clear, at least the westbound lanes were. I put on sunglasses to avoid the glare of a thousand windshields going nowhere on the other side. A futile attempt to see a dragonlord. Their desperation made me cringe. Dragonlords aren’t fairytale godmothers who make dreams come true.
And speaking of dragonlords, how was I supposed to bring the book back to Nathanael? Using a helicopter? Because that seemed to be the only way into Arlington at the moment.
The steering wheel began to vibrate. I looked at it, puzzled. The radio wasn’t that loud. Then the entire Audi was trembling. I realized that it wasn’t my car, it was the ground underneath.
Just like what had happened at TriMedica.
I looked at the speedometer. 45 mph. Had Nathanael sent a wyrm after me? Stupidly enough, I hadn’t gotten their promise that they wouldn’t kill me while I went for the book. Now, if they wanted to kill me, they could have terminated their visit the second I left.
Shit.
The shaking grew so intense that it became difficult stay in control. I stomped on the brake, got out and ran to the shoulder. My Audi remained in the middle lane with the doo
r open. A convertible whipped by me, its driver’s eyes wide.
The ground exploded, the force sending my car flying. An enormous wyrm, three times the size of the one I’d killed, surged out and snapped its jaws shut on my poor Audi while the car was still spinning in the air. It crumpled like an aluminum can with a huge crunching metal noise. I’d had that gorgeous piece of German engineering for less than a month. The insurance company was going to be pissed.
The wyrm spat bits of steel from its mouth, saliva dripping in pools. This one had iridescent mother-of-pearl scales. The white sun turned them into a sparkling luster that would have blinded me if it hadn’t been for my sunglasses. Pupiless murky brown eyes stared at the carcass of my car as if looking for signs of life. I stayed low, hoping it wouldn’t notice me and go away.
Several automobiles screeched to a stop, their drivers staring out the windshields. Goddamn it. If these people stayed, they could get hurt. My valiant and courageous plan to remain hidden wasn’t going to work.
“Go! Get out!” I swung my arms, gesturing at them to continue driving. “Danger, danger!”
Apparently, in addition to reducing their IQ by about half, the presence of a wyrm turned everyone deaf. Nobody even glanced my way. Several people took out their cell phones and began to snap photos.
What kind of idiot takes pictures of a deadly predator on the loose instead of running away? “Get out!” This was the last time I was going to waste my breath on the crowd. I waved at the wyrm. “Hey, I’m the one you want!”
The wyrm turned. It was completely out of the ground now, hissing like an overheated steam valve. Its tail swiped the ground, and people and cars smashed against the concrete divider between the west and eastbound lanes. On the other side, drivers began to climb out of their cars to gawk. Northern Virginia Rubberneck Syndrome. Some were on the phone, most likely to regale their friends and families with the terror and excitement of seeing a real wyrm up close and personal.
The problem with such people is that you can’t cure stupidity, not even with magic. Not that I could work anything after draco perditio had wrung me dry. Whatever Valerie’s Sex had replenished wasn’t even enough for a circle of containment.
The wyrm raised its head high as if to intimidate me. A wasted move, since I was already intimidated. But maybe it appealed to its sense of drama. Long teeth dripped acid from its open jaws. Drops hit the ground and sizzled on the asphalt, creating fumes that smelled like ammonia. I coughed, backing away. I did not want the wyrm’s saliva on me. It’s one thing to be mousy, another to be disfigured.
The wyrm thickened the air with its poison breath. The dragon closed its mouth, its cheeks expanding cartoonishly. What the…
A puffer wyrm?
Poison came spewing out of its mouth, needlelike liquid missiles arcing in the air, landing on whatever was in the way. I gathered enough power—which meant not much—to put up a low-grade shield to protect myself. Others weren’t so fortunate. There were loud splats, and people started screaming. A woman next to me crumpled. The poison didn’t just melt her flesh. It squirmed like a sack of maggots, eating into her skin and the meat of her body. With each bite the bits of poison grew bigger and smelled more like rancid fish oil. She shrieked as she rolled on the ground, trying to brush them off her skin, but wherever she touched them they split and reproduced.
She wasn’t the only one thrashing around, and I swallowed hard. My protective instinct screamed at me to do something. Those who hadn’t gotten hit by the spit maggots jumped into their vehicles and tried to get away. But on the west side they couldn’t get past the wyrm, and on the east side all the lanes were jammed. The wyrm saliva began to eat at steel and glass.
Damn, damn, damn.
The wyrm geared itself up for another attack, and this time I wouldn’t be able to protect myself. I honestly had nothing left in me. I looked around desperately for something to hide behind.
The dragon reared back and spat again. I ducked and rolled, but part of it hit me, and I gasped at the searing pain on my left shoulder. I could see the maggot, its little teeth tearing my flesh. I whipped out the knife I used for killing demons, but the maggot was faster. It burrowed into my shoulder, like a hot poker penetrating deeper and deeper into the joint, and I bit my lower lip until it bled. Finally I screamed.
My vision began to blur, but I could see the wyrm arcing toward me, its slavering maw wide open. For its size, it was surprisingly fast. I tried to roll away, but it closed its jaws on my other shoulder, the good one, and pumped poison into my system. Tens—perhaps hundreds—of maggots wiggled into my body. The wyrm raised its head high, my body still clamped between its jaws, and the world tilted crazily.
Suddenly a figure appeared before the wyrm. A white cape fell from his broad shoulders, and silver-white moonbeam hair swayed down his back. In his right hand, he held a seven-foot sword. His feet were planted widely apart, and he seemed to radiate light.
Ramiel.
He said something, a challenge, in a language I couldn’t understand.
The wyrm hissed at him but didn’t let go of me.
The man moved with the grace of an Olympic athlete, like he had oiled ball bearings for joints. He plunged his sword deep into the wyrm’s belly and ran down its length, pulling the blade as he went. The skin split open like a tightly stretched drum, and I felt the shock travel through the monster’s body.
