CHAPTER 34

The small car hit a bump in the street, nearly throwing Naveena and me off the roof.

“Goddamn it, Afu!” More than likely he couldn’t hear me, but I said it all the same. “I just remembered you can’t drive for shit.”

Ahead of us the ice dragon’s tail, which looked like a crystal fan at the end of a snow-covered log, flicked from one side of the street to the other, smashing into office buildings and concrete pillars of parking garages.

“Get us a little closer!” I shouted.

Afu stuck his head out of the window. “Huh?”

I pumped my arm toward the dragon. “Closer, closer!”

Afu swerved around an over-turned city bus, but the rest of the block stretched ahead without a single obstacle. I squeezed tighter against the roof as the little-hover-car-that-could launched into overdrive. We passed under the dragon’s tail, keeping pace under the part where some icy testicles could have hung. The scaly’s claws were only a few feet ahead of the car, and a casual back kick of either leg would rip through the metal and kill all three of us.

Naveena tapped me on the shoulder and yelled through the wind. “Let’s power jump! Get on top of it.”

“Why are you always wanting to ride these things?” I asked.

“On three!” Naveena climbed into a squatting position and held out three fingers. By the time I got to my own feet, Naveena had folded down one finger, leaving two to go.

The ice dragon breathed its fury down the street as smatterings of people screamed and ran. Sheets of frost formed on windows. A few unfortunate souls had gotten blasted by the dragon’s ice beam, turning into macabre snow people after the light passed over them.

When Naveena lowered her final finger and the ice dragon’s tail swooped over our heads to the left, she shouted, “Now!”

Both of us hit our jump buttons and sailed into the air. Our trajectory should have put us dead center on the back of the scaly’s neck. But its tail swung back as we flew through the air, slamming into me first, then Naveena. We soared together in a tangled girl ball of smoke eaters. I managed to grab onto her, unsure which part it even was. I just wanted something to hang onto. The world spun out of my control as I tumbled into the unknown.

Something hit me… or I hit something. We’d definitely connected with a window. I remember the initial smack of a smooth surface, followed by the cymbal crash of glass that sliced my cheek. After a few rolls of my helmeted head smacking against the floor, I crawled, aching, to my feet. We’d been whacked through a window and now stood inside a darkened office filled with cubicles.

“You okay?” I asked Naveena, who groaned from the ground, still flat on her face.

“Yeah. How ’bout you?”

“I’m sore as hell, but never mind that. We have to stop that dragon.”

Naveena sighed. “There’ll just be another dragon after that. They never stop.”

I helped her to stand. “Yeah, but that’s our job, remember? Plus, the others aren’t that big or icy.”

“That frosty fuck is halfway to Canada by now.”

A crash and a roar came from the nearest window.

“No, it’s not,” I said.

Afu broke in through my helmet radio. “I got ahead of it. But it’s turned around and it’s chasing me now.”

Outside, the ice dragon was making a circle around the building. The top of its ice-clustered head crested the lowest part of the window. If it kept circling around…

“Come on.” I slapped Naveena’s armored chest and ran for the wall.

“How are you going to–”

My lasers bit into the bare wall, chewing through the sheetrock like a dragon through wet toilet paper. With an elbow raised in front of my face, I went through the wall and out the other side, stumbling a bit, but quickly regained my footing and picked up speed.

“You’re crazy as fuck.” Naveena laughed and zoomed past me.

Skinny girls piss me off.

She broke through the next wall without even having to slash it with her sword. I zipped through the hole she’d made, and entered a corner office. Its window looked onto the next street over, where the convention center stood a few blocks away, glistening with bright yellow lights like a beacon to all scalies great and small.

“This it,” Naveena said. “Now or never. What are we gonna do?”

The ice dragon’s roar grew closer, even the beat of its wings shook the window in front of me.

I removed my laser axe and smashed out the closest pane. The night air blew in, but it did nothing to cool me off or calm me down. Keeping my eyes on the broken window, I said, “Remember when we were training and you pulled that stupid stunt with Mecha Scaly?”

“Hey, wait–” was all I heard Naveena say.

I backed up a few feet, ran, and leapt from the window. The ice dragon was nowhere close. In fact, I’d jumped the gun, hoping my power suit would notice the shift in gravity and engage its thrusters to slow my fall. On the street, Afu sped below me, but I only caught a glimpse. The ice dragon’s head filled my vision.

I landed with an oof that knocked the air from my lungs. My body began to slip, but, flailing my arms, I grabbed the ice dragon by the horns – which is difficult with an axe in one hand. Fucking scaly was frigid to the touch. Its scales freezer-burned my face, where the window glass had already sliced. It was like riding an angry popsicle. The cold sucks ass. I would have taken the phoenix any day over this wintery bastard.

Knowing something was wrong, the ice dragon flicked its wings backward, heaving to a stop midair. I squeezed the dragon horns tighter. One slip and I’d fall toward a squishy death.

Say what you will about dragons, but they’re great at multitasking. The ice dragon hovered there above the street, beating its wings while it wriggled its head to and fro, trying to catch me in its teeth or knock me off.

Dragon horns still in one hand, I took a swing with my axe. Missed. I was better at shooting, but with my laser arm committed to holding on for dear life, I really didn’t have a choice.

My next swing found dragon flesh and lobbed off a big hunk. The frozen mass fell and smashed against the asphalt like a block of ice. Instead of blood, frosty blue water flowed from the wound. I raised my arm for another whack.

Behind me, the dragon’s body heaved. Naveena landed just behind its wings, and with a scared but wild smile, she began clumsily slashing.

“How did you get here?” I dug in, hacking and swinging my axe in a frenzy. Slaying a dragon by yourself is scary shit. When you have someone at your side, especially someone like Naveena, it dulls the fear a little, knowing that if you go down fighting, you at least won’t be alone.

The dragon, unable to keep itself aloft any longer, dropped to the side, plummeting toward the street and tossing both Naveena and I off with a heavy dusting of shaved ice.

The ground shook as the dragon crushed a couple cars and the awning of bus stop that had been advertising flame-resistant clothing for the fashionconscious.

When I hit the ground, I rolled and forced myself to keep rolling to stay out of the path of the collapsing dragon. I covered my head and waited for the sounds of destruction to fade. When they had, I turned over and looked up to Naveena’s outstretched hand.

“Now, that,” she said, “is slaying a dragon.” What was left of the ice dragon melted instantly into puddles of yellow, glowing goo.

“And that,” I said, “is just nasty.”

Afu and the tiny car whipped around the end of the street and pulled up in front of us. He squeezed out of the driver’s seat and said, “If we keep doing this kind of stuff, we’re never going to make it to the convention center.”

There were no clouds in the sky, but a yellow streak of lightning flickered overhead. It was made of fire and death. Instead of thunder, an avian shriek ripped over the city. The phoenix had been called, whether the people inside the convention center knew or cared, and it had reached its destination.