That seemed like a gutsy thing to say considering neither White Snake nor my father had moved yet. To my surprise, though, the Gameskeeper nodded. “I can’t kill you both,” he agreed. “But why would I want to? I promised the world a dragon fight, and I intend to deliver. We just need to come to a new arrangement.”
His finger tightened on the gun he was holding to my father’s head, and my stomach shrank to the size of a pea. It was easy for White Snake to talk a big game; she was still at full strength. My dad was another story. We’d made huge progress, but I wasn’t about to gamble that he could live through an anti-dragon round to the head, which sure as hell looked like what was about to happen. The only reason I didn’t do something insanely stupid was because my dad didn’t look worried at all.
“A gun? Really?” he drawled, turning around to face the huge barrel the Gameskeeper was pointing in his face with a look of supreme disappointment. “What kind of god needs a mortal weapon to enforce his will?”
“It worked for Algonquin,” the Gameskeeper replied with a shrug. “The Spirit of the Great Lakes was exterminating dragons with these ‘mortal weapons’ for decades before the rest of us woke. Who am I to argue with success? And in case you forgot, I’m the god of the arena. Weapons are as much a part of me as the sand and the blood. You should be thankful that I’m not using a barbed spear like the ancient dragon slayers. The gun is much quicker.”
The Great Yong looked nonplussed, but I didn’t have time to listen to the banter of higher beings. My dad’s poker face might be flawless, but I knew the cards he was holding. He was bluffing big time, and if I didn’t figure out how to follow it up with something real, real fast, we were all seriously boned.
Don’t worry, the DFZ said in my mind, her voice finally breaking through the wall of my panic that she’d clearly been beating on for a while. This changes nothing. Stick to the plan!
Which part? I thought back frantically, because the plan as I knew it was totally off the rails.
Nothing’s off the rails. We’re still inside the arena, and the system that feeds magic to the Gameskeeper is still in place. All you have to do is blow his spellwork like we practiced and everything will be fine.
I didn’t see how that could possibly be the case. Yes, we were technically inside the Gameskeeper’s domain, but the spellwork that captured and held the crowd’s magic was thousands of feet above me. How was I supposed to overload a spell I couldn’t even see?
The distance doesn’t matter, the DFZ said firmly. Every part of this place is part of him just as all corners of the city are part of me. There is no near or far, it’s all the same magic. The opening fights are happening as we speak, and the place is packed. The crowd’s already running near peak. All you have to do is add my power on top of that, and this whole place should blow!
That was indeed the strategy we’d come up with, but even if I could reach the spell from here, it was too early. Nik hadn’t even come out yet. If we blew the spellwork now, he’d still be cursed.
We’ll deal with that later! Power surged into me as she shoved magic through our connection. But if you don’t do something now, your dad is dead!
I took her magic grudgingly, but I didn’t like this one bit. This wasn’t how the plan was supposed to go. Even if I succeeded in blowing out his ability to catch and hold the crowd’s power, it wasn’t as if the Gameskeeper would just poof into thin air. There was plenty of magic floating around to keep him manifested, and he’d still be holding an anti-dragon gun to my dad’s head. Seriously, why hadn’t the DFZ destroyed those things?
Because I’m a city of commerce! I can’t not sell something worth that much money! And anyway, it’s not my job to keep dragons safe. That’s what the Peacemaker is for.
Yeah, well, it was biting us in the tail now, wasn’t it? Thanks to her reckless capitalism, my dad was cornered. White Snake was looking pretty gun-shy, too, which meant we were double screwed. If she couldn’t run away, Nik’s fight was still on. If we didn’t stop that, why the hell were we doing this?
For everything else! the DFZ yelled, her voice frantic. Remember the horrible things the Gameskeeper has done to my city! I know tonight hasn’t gone exactly as we wanted, but if you destroy his ability to catch and hold the crowd’s power, that’s still a win! Given how things stand, it might be the only one we get. I’m already working on a way to get you out, but right now I need you to do what we trained you to do and blast him while you still can!
Nothing about this felt like a win to me. I still had to try, though. Even if everything else had failed, something was always better than nothing, so I reached out and grabbed the magic the DFZ was frantically throwing at me, pulling power through our bond until I could feel and hear and smell the city all around me. Until I was—
“Stop.”
My eyes flew open. The Gameskeeper’s gun was still pointed at my dad, but his bloody glare was locked on me. “I can feel what you’re doing,” he warned, shifting his finger menacingly on the trigger. “I will not be hobbled on the night of my greatest achievement.
