Dragon Royale 2: An Urban Fantasy Adventure Page 11

  “Sure,” Jo replied. “Here we go.”

  I gave them a thumbs up, then waited. It seemed like my gun was going to be necessary, but shooting those things next to Echo was going to take a marksman.

  ***

  Jo took him directly to his wolf about midway across the water. The eels gave the appearance of a terrible threat to the delicate legs of the naked young woman, but she held the wolf as high as she could without looking down or slowing.

  The rest of the river looked like something out of one of those piranha movies. The things rising to the surface could have been fish, or snakes, or more eels. Maybe Conflict stocked this river with water dragons to get me good.

  “Don’t stop!” I shouted.

  “Thank you, master knight!” Anton bellowed. “She’s done it!”

  “You are—” I started to say, but I saw movement in the bushes at the far bank. It was about twenty yards downstream from where Tex kept watch.

  “He’s a knight!” a man shouted from somewhere on the other bank. “Let tan-shirt have it!”

  An arrow soared out of the brush across the river. At first, it didn’t seem to be moving that fast because I saw it wobble in flight. However, by the time it ripped through the air a few inches from my face, it seemed to be made of lightning.

  At first, watching the missile fly at me was more like a television show, but now adrenaline spilled into my system and my muscles came alive. This was really happening.

  “Holy fucking shit! Ambush!” I screamed.

  Echo shifted one of her feet at that exact moment as if I’d scared her, but fortunately she did not tip her load. The eels seemed to scatter, but everything else in the water was now upon them.

  Raven whined and struggled.

  I was tempted to yell for Echo to throw him to shore, but I had no idea if she was strong enough. She made some more progress and was about five feet from dry land, but she couldn’t set Raven down until they were over the stream completely.

  Jo was as exposed as hell hovering three feet above the water. One of the eels shot up and tried to nip at her combat boot. In seconds, it was going to be dangerous for both of them.

  “Get him across,” I yelled on our mental link.

  Before she moved, Anton reached to his left to grab Raven and steady him in Echo’s arms.

  Another arrow flew by me.

  “Aw fuck,” I mumbled.

  There was no target in sight, but I took a knee and lined up a shot where I thought the arrows came from. I clicked the safety and squeezed the trigger. The loud report provided a satisfying beam of hot, white light as the tracer instantly impacted over in the trees. Since I wasn’t paying for ammo, I unloaded on that position. In first person shooter language, I rained down suppressive fire so my friends could complete their tasks.

  Echo leaned hard to the right as Raven struggled in her arms. The wolf seemed to want to get up with Anton, but the general only wanted to steady him the last few feet as the water bubbled with predators. The awkward combination made Echo stumble toward the shore.

  Another arrow came out of the bushes and struck a tree a few feet in front of me. The missiles were crude and homemade, but obviously effective.

  I squatted behind that same tree and tried to link up with Banger, but the instant I saw through his eyes I looked back across the water. He sat on the bank watching Raven cross with the same nervousness as everyone else.

  “Fuck. Cat. Go scout!” I hated to pull rank, but the whole crossing was getting fucked up the tailpipe right now.

  I sent him an image of me swooshing him with my hand to get him moving.

  Banger jumped two feet in the air and turned toward the action on shore.

  “Acquiring targets.” A male computer voice came across the link from Banger.

  “I can understand you!” I said on the link back to him.

  “Second level surveillance package now includes text-to-voice translation.”

  Jo’s second degree of the Surveillance option now made more sense.

  “Do your thing, Banger, and I’ll catch you a nice fish.”

  “Fish treats are appreciated, but not necessary for normal combat operations.”

  I chuckled at the notion of talking to a cat, or catching a fish for him, but quickly turned my attention back to Echo. Her footing seemed to give her trouble as she swayed back and forth with the big wolf in her arms. She’d gotten to shallow water so her ass was now fully exposed to the air, but she still hadn’t delivered the wolf.

  “Shit!” I screamed as I watched the car wreck in progress.

  Echo cried out. “He’s falling!”

  At the same time, Anton continued to grab at the now-flailing wolf. He leaned so far to his left that whatever magic steadied the broom appeared to fail. Jo’s ride leaned toward Echo and her magic spiked as she tried to shove the whole group forward toward the far shore.

  “Come on,” I insisted under my breath to help them along.

  My magic coursed through Jo’s body as she tried to hold onto her broom, but it also looped over to Tex. My cowgirl remained at her station with her gun trained on threats she couldn’t see but knew were out there. She’d found a tree to hide behind and had her new pistol at the ready. I felt her magic engage and saw her body glimmer as she faded into the bark like a chameleon.

  Magic also ran through Echo because she was a powerful magical creature, but I couldn’t control any of it while watching her, because there was no connection between us.

  The water woman fell to her knees and did her best to toss the wolf the last few feet to shore, but it appeared destined to fail. I now saw that something larger than the eels had her legs tied up. However, once the wolf was in the air, Anton managed to hold Raven by the scruff and pull.

  Jo leaned almost sideways and tried to keep Anton aboard, but the big man couldn’t be stopped once he started over the edge.

  “Raven!” the general hollered.

  Jo played a huge part in saving them all. Anton fell from the broom, and shoved his wolf, but Jo’s momentum made sure the whole disaster moved forward as sure as a quarterback sneak on the goal line.

  Raven cried out as he smacked the dirt on the far shore. Anton let out his own yelp as he hit the bank a few feet away.

  Jo cranked hard on her broom and righted herself just when I thought she was a goner.

  Echo made sure her cargo made it to shore, then she dove into deeper water with the facial expressions of a woman who’d had enough.

  She was going to go fuck someone up.

  ***

  Anton managed to get to shore after his fall, but one of his feet struck the water. It seemed to piss off the angry churn and his whole foot was now engulfed with something that reminded me of a blood-red hand.

  “Lose the boot!” I yelled, thinking it shouldn’t be necessary to tell the veteran general such a thing.

  He gripped roots and branches nearby as he fought the pull. “I’ve had these since the Battle of Caldera!”

  “For fuck’s fucking sake,” I said to myself. “Some people.”

  Raven seemed alright as he shook himself off, and Echo was beyond my reach, so I turned back to something I could control.

  “Jo, Banger talked to me,” I said on our mental link. “He is looking for the targets.”

  As she made some tight loops over the water, one of the shooters sent an arrow at her, but it deflected harmlessly off her metal brassiere.

  She didn’t give it as much worry as I did, but had her eyes somewhere else. Her shotgun pointed down, but she didn’t fire. “I can’t see Echo, Matt. There is too much stuff in the water. It looks like feeding time at the coy pond.”

  “I know,” I said sadly. “One thing at a time. Go help Tex.”

  She stowed the shotgun over her shoulders and I was thrilled to feel her magical reserves flare up, like she’d been holding back. Almost as if the thought of battle made her magic begin to salivate in anticipation.

  “They’ve f
ired a few arrows at me, but I think they are trying to trap Tex over there.” I said it as I re-aimed my gun on the far bank.

  Jo hit the afterburner as she took off downstream. A couple of arrows came out of the woods after her, which gave me hints on where to fire. That’s probably what she planned.

  My tracer rounds zipped out like lasers into the bushes fifty feet away.

  A woman screamed in pain.

  “One down,” Jo reported. “Banger zeroed in on the voice. Standby one.”

  I tried to tune in to Banger, but was distracted by the continuing action at the shore. Anton finally kicked off his wet boot and clambered back from the froth, but he went to Raven instead of standing and running away. The eel-like creatures flung themselves up onto the beach as if willing to die to get his sockless foot.

  “Damn, get up!” I yelled across. He was also exposed to our human enemies. “Get to cover!”

  I rattled off more rounds to keep the enemy from firing on him.

  Jo shot out of the woods across the river, but now she was on my left like she’d done a wide loop around the enemy positions.

  “Banger has them. He’s sending up a killbox, now.” Jo reported like we were on a military channel, and I finally understood how her witch training was going to help us do some serious damage.

  A box came over the mental link but it wasn’t what I expected. I was hoping for a tiny box that said ‘fire here’ to kill enemy, but what he sent me was only a little bit smaller than what I’d estimated as their positions anyway.

  “Do you see it, Matt? Put some rounds on that target.”

  “I do. I’m trying to figure this out.”

  Jo and I shot our guns at the same time. She’d come to a stop near Tex and pointed her to the enemy. Tex reached around the tree and joined in with her pistol.

  After firing madly for thirty seconds, they paused as if testing whether they hit a target.

  My heart hammered in my chest as the seconds ticked by. The two girls were my responsibility and despite being on the wrong side of the river I couldn’t risk them getting hurt. When I couldn’t stand the silence a nanosecond longer, I fired on our enemies.

  My rifle kicked out another ten or fifteen tracer rounds and immediately an arrow came right at me.

  I ducked reflexively, but noted the flash of arm movement where the arrow came from. The thick bush covered most, but not all, of the shooter. I may have given myself away with my tracers, but so did he.

  There was no way he could reload before I set myself up to return fire, so I leaned back around the tree. I creamed his hiding spot with deadly magic bullets, but he somehow got one last shot off. It made me duck, but it wasn’t necessary, because the arrow went well wide of my tree.

  A man screamed as I hid myself from view, and I was high-fiving myself, until a woman cried out over there.

  “Dale? No!”

  It was kill or be killed.

  “I think I hit the enemy knight,” I said to Jo on the link with as much calm as I could fake.

  She instantly replied. “The killbox should get smaller for the last one. We have her voice. Standby, Matt.”

  I waited for Banger to do his calculations, but things went crazy when a gray streak ran past Tex and Jo.

  “Kill!” Anton shouted at the top of his massive lungs. I very nearly felt bad for the enemy squire because the general’s voice almost had me scared.

  There was one “pling” of a bow firing an arrow, followed by several wet female screams. For about thirty seconds Raven snarled and barked like he was locked in mortal combat.

  Anton and his axe trotted by Tex and Jo to go after Raven. The general lacked one boot, which made his movement uneven, but he chuckled like he knew what he’d soon find.

  “He takes no prisoners,” the general said to the girls as the killer wolf seemed to calm down. By the time I lost sight of the big man, there were no more screams from behind the bushes.

  Jo and Tex looked at each other, then over to me like they didn’t know if they should follow or not. Our magic intensified as we all shared a moment, but then it dissipated as if it knew to stand down. In that short battle, both women accrued a fair bit of experience on their own.

  We stood there in disbelief for a minute or so, until Anton finally came out of the bushes with Raven by his side. The gray wolf’s muzzle glistened with red blood and he had an arrow lodged in his fur a little above his already-injured front leg.

  Neither of them seemed put out. The general patted his chest. “I won another battle!”

  I cracked up laughing at his ballsy interpretation of what just happened.

  “You’re one crazy fucker,” I said to myself.

  My humor evaporated when I saw Echo lying halfway out of the water on the other shore.

  LETTING GO

  “Jo, get me over there right now!” I yelled out loud.

  My Korean witch flew over and grabbed my outstretched hand. She pulled me onto her broom like it was a horse and we were in a western movie.

  Echo was face-down on the edge of the flowing water as if the stream itself had spit her out. As Jo flew me over to her, I was sure something was going to reach up and snatch her away from me.

  “Echo!” I cried out when I jumped down in the dirt. “Are you OK?”

  I saw her stir, so I fell to my knees and touched the back of her shoulder. “Please be alright.”

  My instinct was to pull her out of the water completely, but she dug into the shore as soon as I tried.

  “I must touch the water,” she exclaimed.

  I let her go and her shoulders relaxed.

  “Got it,” I acknowledged.

  The young woman looked up at me with a grimy smile. Mud caked one side of her face and her long straight hair had become twisted and filthy. “Did I make your team?”

  “Team?” I bent down closer. “What do you mean?”

  Her ocean-blue eyes became distant. “You are going over the land, now, aren’t you? I tried to get the general’s boot on my way back up, but I failed. I was hoping that if I impressed you enough, you’d want to stay here by the water. With me.”

  I was taken aback. “This wasn’t a tryout, Echo.” My voice trailed off because I wasn’t sure what it was. The blue zebra-striped woman was beautiful, no doubt about it, and her magic was powerful, too. I felt it in my fingertips when I caressed her soft skin. We could stay along the shore until we reached the Wellspring, but taking a longer route put us all at risk.

  What would Clint say? He’d been silent pretty much since Conflict locked him back up inside me, but his magic was alive and active. I knew exactly what it wanted me to do.

  “Fire up the plow and harvest her delicate crop!” is probably what he’d say.

  Tex opened up a mental link with me. “We can’t take her along, Matt. I’m sorry.”

  Jo jumped on, so it became a three-way. “Water and land can’t mix. You can see she has to keep her feet in the water just to talk to you. I hate to be the one to say it, but you’ll have to throw her back.”

  Jo and Tex laughed a little, as if to encourage me to see the bright side.

  “Thanks, guys,” I responded, “let me give this a little more thought.”

  Back to Echo, I looked over her strong shoulders, tight back muscles, and powerful glutes. Water lapped at her thighs like hungry dogs.

  “What happened to all those creatures that had you down underwater?” I asked her.

  “They didn’t want me. They wanted the stinky wolf, and, briefly, the general. Once they were gone, I was able to blend in with the schools below as my kind does.”

  I noticed a few welts starting to bruise on her back.

  “And these?”

  “I guess I smelled like him for a time and suffered a few attempted bites. As you can see, I’m fine.”

  I picked up her hair to inspect her neck, but it was clear of blemishes.

  “You survived out of the water back when you were in the puddle. You can
obviously get out for a time, but exactly how long can you do it?”

  She coughed a bit and rolled over on her side. Mud stuck to most of her body that had been touching the shore, which helped me from getting distracted by her female charms.

  “The more I have, the better I feel. I can stand in water up to my waist all day long, but I get antsy if it is only up to my ankles. I can take it for maybe an hour, but I feel horrible. When you put me in that puddle, I had the bare minimum to keep me alive, but I was very weak.” She halted and seemed to think about it. “And I do better in flowing water.”

  I smiled. “I didn’t have that option. I did what I thought was best back there.” My brain always tried to analyze ways to improve my techniques.

  “Of course, and the puddle did great!” she said with her old charm. “I can survive on less, for short times. I once walked all the way across a sandbar on a dare. I totally left the water.”

  “Wow,” I said in return. “How did you feel after that?”

  “I saw my breakfast a second time,” she replied without embarrassment.

  “Ah. I see.” I scratched my head. “So if we could find a way to keep you wet …”

  She cut me off with a laugh. “If you kept me as wet as your mates, I would walk the sandbar all day long.”

  “Well, they aren’t my mates, exactly.” It was my turn to pause. “When you say wet, you mean sweaty, right? Would it help you if we kept you active and sweat-soaked?”

  “Echoes and sirens don’t sweat. We use the stream to stay cool. But I wish we did, so I could share it with you. Your kind perspires a salty scent I find intoxicating. You have it right now.”

  I’d been sweating like a mofo since the crossing began, so I wasn’t surprised she could smell me, but I didn’t think it was my sweat exactly that caught her notice. I was covered with pheromones from two women rubbing all over me, not to mention the prize-winning climaxes from all three of us.

  “I thought your sense of smell wasn’t that great out of the water?”

  “Aye, Sir Matt, but we are inches away. I feel drawn to your scent as surely as if your siren song had captured me.”

  Her smile got wider and the red water at her knees began to creep up her outstretched body.