Val growled and swung back around, trying to bring her hand down like a hammer onto Lizzy’s head. Lizzy stepped to the side and, with a fluid, circular motion, gripped Val’s wrist and added to her momentum, driving Val’s own fist into her thigh.
Val yelped with pain as her muscles spasmed, leg almost buckling on her.
Lizzy laughed like it was the funniest thing she had ever seen, and her laughter matched her eyes. It was broken, lilting up and down the scales randomly. She actually clasped her hands over her belly as if trying to contain it.
“Oh oh ha! All that strength and only the bittiest little training. I thought this was going to be fun!”
Her face instantly shifted from mirth to anger, as if a light switch had been thrown.
“You… SIT!”
The short woman jabbed two fingers into Val’s breastbone, and the force of the blow was staggering. Val found herself stumbling backward, only to crash into one of the chairs. She sat there, stunned, gasping for breath.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve put me through!?”
“What—” Val gasped.
“Shut it! I’m rantin’ here! Girl doesn’t know when to listen to her betters, does she? Stupid cow.”
Lizzy began to pace back and forth, gesturing wildly as she spoke. She only looked at Val occasionally, and seemed to be talking to an audience, or to herself, or some combination thereof.
“Came all the way down here. Used up all my emergency cash. Couldn’t use the credit cards. Oh no, of course not, Mumsy watches those accounts, doesn’t she? Likes to know where her favorite little girl is. All because you and my idiot brother think you can replace me. You can’t! You won’t!”
“What brother?” Val snapped, regaining some of her composure.
“It doesn’t shut up, does it!”
Lizzy looked back at Val, and her eyes flashed. They seemed almost to swirl.
“Nathaniel, you stupid. Who else have you been bumping headboards with? Wait, no, don’t answer that. I so very much don’t want to know. Ugh. And it took me days to find you. Days! What kind of person lives in New Orleans and never walks down Bourbon Street?”
“Shows what you know. Most locals don’t bother with it,” Val said.
Lizzy went still. A moment ago she had been all motion, now she could have been a statue. Her gaze bored into Valerie.
Then, slowly at first, she began to change. She stretched, expanded, till she was as tall as Valerie. Even her clothes seemed to change with her, though Val was pretty sure that was just their cut.
She changed again, milky white scales spreading over her skin. They flowed like water. Iridescent, catching the light and tossing it back like moonstone. Her tongue flicked out, long and forked.
Then again. And in a moment Valerie was looking at an exact copy of herself.
“I can be anything I want. You are already dead, but if you piss me off, I’ll use your own form to rape your brother. So shut it.”
Val quivered with rage, and the armrests of the chair snapped in her hands. Lizzy nodded and smiled at the display, and shifted back into her own form.
“No one knows I’m here. No one is gonna know. They don’t let Lizzy have her fun, especially not if she plans on breaking her brother’s toys,” Lizzy said.
Val surged toward her again, swelling in size as she went. Lizzy seemed shocked by the motion, perhaps thinking Val properly cowed. Either way, Val’s fist cracked into her stomach, a fist nearly the size of a football.
“I am no one’s toy,” said Val.
Lizzy fell, and Val was on her. She struck her twice more before Lizzy began to block. Val managed to grab one of her wrists, and slammed her hand into her face, going down on one knee and trying to pin her smaller opponent.
Then Lizzy smiled, blood running from her smashed nose.
“Oh, good, you can be fun!”
Lizzy shrank. So suddenly and rapidly that she slipped free from Val and slipped behind her in an instant. With Val having gained size and Lizzy losing it, she was now less then half as big as Val. She grinned and slammed her foot into the small of Val’s back, sending her flying through the air.
Val twisted in midair, instincts panicking, and cradled her stomach as she fell.
Lizzy stood still as rock again, nostrils flaring.
“No.”
Val didn’t have time to react as Lizzy jumped at her. She grabbed Val by the hair and by the throat and smashed her head back into the ground. Val’s vision blurred, and she found herself staring up into Lizzy’s eyes.
“Let me see…” Lizzy said, glaring downward.
Her eyes widened and her nostrils flared again. She jumped back from Val and held her fist up to her mouth, looking like a shocked little girl.
“I’m gonna be an auntie?!” she said, her tone a mix of shock and confusion.
Val staggered to her feet.
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Val said.
“Sure you don’t. Only person I ever saw that worried ’bout their stomach in a fight was Mum when she had Thor on board.”
Lizzy rushed at her, and Val braced herself, ready to fend off another attack. The last thing she expected was to be hugged about the waist and lifted into the air. Lizzy swung her back and forth, dancing from foot to foot.
“Yeeehee, I’ve never been an aunt!” Lizzy said.
And just like that she again dropped Val, who landed heavily on her rear. Val could only sit blinking as she watched the other woman’s face go through a dozen emotions in an eyeblink. From joy to confusion to black anger.
“Oh, this is so… I don’t know what… I should kill you both… but.. I…”
Lizzy seemed lost in thought. Val reacted; she grabbed up a nearby flowerpot and stood, slamming it into the side of Lizzy’s head. It smashed against her skull.
Lizzy blinked, still standing and seemingly unfazed as dirt and broken pottery fell from her hair. Val noticed that her nose had healed.
“You know, if you are going to fight other dragons, you need to learn how to make the right kind of claws,” Lizzy said, voice suddenly completely calm.
She reached out and slapped Val, not as hard as she had been hit before, but there was a splash of blood. Val stepped back, hand flying to her cheek. Three short tears marred it.
Lizzy lifted a hand that was now tipped in talons, like a hawk’s. But each bladed claw seemed rough. Val couldn’t get a good look as they shifted away, back to dainty fingers and manicured nails. Lizzy sucked the blood from her fingers absentmindedly, as if she didn’t realize what she was doing.
“This changes things, but I don’t know how yet. When I decide, you’ll be the first to know,” Lizzy said.
Val didn’t know what to do. She was still so angry, but she wasn’t stupid. She had no idea what she could do to faze, much less stop, this madwoman. Lizzy walked past her, heading toward the door out of the complex.
“Oh yeah,” Lizzy said without looking back. “No one can know I’m here. Tell anyone—anyone!—and you’ll force my hand.”
She actually waved as she left. Val just kept staring, hand still held to her cut cheek.
She had never thought of the possibility of an insane dragon.
Twenty
