dragon, it sailed right through it. The fireball burned all the way to the other side where it fell into the snow and flickered out.
Unhurt, the thing came at me again, the ground trembling as it leapt once more. I dodged out of the way, but it was smart. It shifted mid-jump, changing its direction. The edge of its wing slammed into my stomach and swept me onto my back. It felt like being hit by baseball bat swung by Conan. My ribs thrummed as it pulled its wing back, leaving a long, broken shard of it still on top of me. I grabbed it out of instinct and rolled away to force the dragon to turn so I had a few seconds to think. Beneath me, I heard the crunch of paper.
I looked down to see the book Mihheer had used to summon the ice dragon. Despite it all, there was nothing I could do to stop a harsh laugh from spilling out. It was a World of Warcraft game manual. The freaking alien was trying to kill me with WoW…just wow. I watched as the dragon turned to face me once more, splitting my gaze between the picture of the dragon and the real thing in front of me. They looked exactly the same. I shook my head.
How could I possibly be the first fatality of WoW when my fingers weren’t stained orange by Cheetos, and I didn’t have a female alter-ego that I used to get attention? There was no way in hell I was going out like that. I could only imagine the snickers at my funeral.
As the dragon hunkered down to attack, I looked to the piece of ice in my hand. It was long, like a spear, and the edge that had broken off was jagged and sharp. I suddenly had an idea. Just as the dragon jumped, I willed my magic to ignite the ice in my hand. It erupted immediately. The flames engulfed the ice, but didn’t melt it.
That’s the beauty of magic. It doesn’t have to make sense.
As the dragon swooped for me, I swung the flaming piece of ice like a sword and darted out of the way as it hit. The sharpened edge enhanced by the mystical fire, the makeshift sword cut through the dragon’s front leg without resistance. It crashed to earth, missing the support of its limb, its head slamming into the ground. Before it could recover, I strafed its wing and cut several chunks from it, making sure the thing couldn’t fly.
It snapped at me as I ducked under its wounded wing, drawing my blade across its flank. The ice hissed and sizzled as I cut a long groove into its side and down its back thigh. The dragon went to stand and collapsed, its legs too damaged to support its weight. A sharp crack sounded as a huge piece of its back end broke away. It shrieked and howled and swiped at me with its good wing, still trying to take me out despite its wounds.
I dodged the ineffective swats and ran up to its head. It rolled its neck to look back at me just as I drove the flaming icicle into its eyes. The dragon shrieked once more and twitched violently, going still in a sudden rush of silence. The whole of it melted, a wash of cold water soaking me from the thighs down.
I wondered how many experience points he was worth. It’d be nice to level up.
The dragon and Mihheer gone, I focused in on the vial of my blood he’d been carrying and went over to where he dropped it. Caught up as I was in the moment when I’d first arrived, I hadn’t any clue where I was. Now that I was no longer on the menu, it all came rushing back.
I was in the Siberian tundra. It was where I’d buried my mother.
The village of our birth was long gone, our people wiped out by my father after Lucifer turned them against him. Where the village used to sit was nothing more than an open field. It was surrounded by an ancient forest that had stood watch long since before I was born. By now, there was nothing left of my mother but dust and memories. I’d left the vial of blood to mark the place I’d buried her. No headstone would have survived the harsh conditions, but my demonic blood would last into eternity.
Its essence was just enough to allow me to find her grave on those rare occasions when I returned to Russia. It had apparently been enough to draw Mihheer here, too. He’d shown he could find me, but perhaps he’d been confused by all my gate-hopping back and forth between Hell and Earth. Not that it mattered much. He was done with me and was going after Scarlett. I needed to warn her.
I stuck the frozen vial back into the deep hole Mihheer had pulled it from and expended some energy to make the tundra melt back over.
“I’m sorry, Mom.” It was all I could tell her, still upset. There wasn’t time for me to air my frustrations, so I bent over and kissed the ground, willing it to my mother, and headed off.
With no clue how I ended up in Russia, and lacking a ride home, I trekked across the tundra to find a portal. Fortunately, demons and angels have been traversing the world since the days of the dinosaurs. It’s become common practice to stash gates around the globe to allow for easy travel for the supernaturals who can’t teleport. I knew where a few were, seeing how I used one in particular when I came out to visit my mom.
Lucky for me it was only three miles away.
Yeah…lucky.
Chapter Nineteen
It was a long, cold walk to civilization. Being back only created grief of its own kind, almost making me wish I’d stayed in the quiet tundra. Normal communication from Hell was impossible, and I couldn’t go home with the DSI goons hanging out. They’d proven they weren’t looking to put me in cuffs anymore, preferring to put me in a grave; a literal one, not the metaphysical representation of the actual, real grave I’d fallen into.
Blame the confusion on my college psychology professor. I didn’t need more than one semester to realize I had an abnormal psyche. That and a five dollar bill would get you a hit television show.
Stuck for a place to go, I finally decided on the old DRAC base where we’d kept Lilith’s body after she’d been sacrificed to bring Longinus back to life. It had been attacked and everyone there murdered by the Nephilim, the half breed bastards of angels. Kind of like me, only from the other side of the supernatural tracks.
It was a pretty good bet no one from DRAC had even bothered to do anything but collect bodies and shut the place down considering all that’s happened since. I figured it was a chance work taking. I was right.
The place hadn’t even been sealed off. The DRAC workers apparently busted their asses to get all the people out and strip the place of anything that might be seen as out of the ordinary, but they left the mundane stuff there. The compound off the beaten path, they weren’t worried about anyone stumbling across the place before they could give it a proper shutdown. All the security systems had been deactivated. The place was abandoned.
I went inside and was amazed by how spotless it was. There wasn’t a hint of the bloodbath that occurred there. The desks and chairs and computer equipment were clean, though it was clear many were missing, damaged in the battle, but only someone who’d been there before would have noticed. I knew the hard drives on the computers would be replaced or removed and all the lines scrubbed and cleared of recording devices and electronic triggers that translated the coded messages sent over them in order to forward it to the appropriate responders.
Worried about Scarlett, I called her first, musing on the strange mix of magic and technology that allowed mundane conveniences to work in Heaven but not in Hell. There was no answer. I tried again and again but wasn’t able to reach her. I called Karra next, looking to let her know I was okay, but I couldn’t get a hold of her either. It was frustrating, and it scared me. With Mihheer able to track me down, he might go after Karra just out spite. She’d been there with me when he first showed up, so he may well have picked up her essence. At least with Karra, I could reach her through Chatterbox. Once I got back to Hell, I’d send a message that way and check in on her. Right then, I just needed to make sure Scarlett was safe.
I called Katon. A few seconds later a telepathic connection was opened between the two of us. “Hey, I need to find Scarlett. Have you seen her?”
His distinctive voice cut through the psychic ether and sounded inside my head. “I haven’t. What’s wrong?” I could hear the concern in his telepathic voice.
“I don’t know for sure that anything is, but I need to warn her…just in case. The alien and I duked it out over Lucifer. The guy got away, but before he left he told me he would hunt down another person on Earth who shared my uncle’s bloodline. That’s Scarlett.” I heard Katon growl.
“I’ll find her.” He got straight to the point, empty static ringing in my head right after.
He’d developed a crush on my cousin recently, so I could count on him to race to her rescue. Better still, he was capable of defending her, or at least backing her up more than proficiently as Scarlett could take care of herself in a fight. The two together could probably whoop Mihheer’s foreign butt. Figuring Katon had already cut the link, I headed out to hop a ride back to Hell.
