Dragon Royale 2: An Urban Fantasy Adventure Read online

  I threw out a few more fucks but tried to think of a solution.

  “I’m falling,” I said to all my girls on the link.

  The green monster cut the line again, but Echo seemed prepared for it. Her watery support rope caught me, then shoved violently upward. When the creature severed it again, my momentum carried me a few more feet toward salvation before Echo got another grip on me. I sensed her magic in the water and knew she fought for my life, but it seemed to be a standoff.

  The green tentacle caught on to Echo’s double-team and another one showed up, so there were two of them against two of ours. The four ropes tangled in a spray of water and green gloppy stuff until Echo cried out to me on the link.

  “Grab the metal, Matt, more are coming.”

  I reached for the lowest point of the scaffolding and held on in the confusion. It felt like two dogs fighting to the death at my feet and there wasn’t anything I could do but hold on. The green tentacles slapped at my legs and tried to grab my ankles, but the watery mist kept the monster from getting a solid grasp of me.

  More tentacles dropped into the pit from somewhere above to help fix the odds. It looked like a giant octopus hung down from the ceiling and all the arms reached out like I had eight adoring fans.

  Two of them grabbed me around the waist and yanked me sideways. I held onto the metalwork with my hands, but my feet were above the abyss. Echo tried to fight the new arrivals, but she was outnumbered, like I was.

  Another green shape whipped by and two of the octopus tentacles cut loose and fell into the pit. I slammed into the girder above the frothy red river once it let me go.

  “Jo!” I cried out.

  She had swooped into battle and cut the tendrils using the bayonet on her shotgun. She held it up in her one hand while she steered her broom out of the pit, howling a war cry the whole way.

  “I’ve got you,” she said over the link once she was safe.

  That was my cue to climb like crazy. It was only about five feet to the decking, but it was wet and slippery the whole way. Raven snarled, and howl-barked like he was in some serious trouble, but when I climbed level with the platform’s walkway I saw the wolf ripping the shit out of one of the creatures. Bits and pieces of it were splashed everywhere on the grating, like an infant with tummy trouble on green-bean day.

  Anton walked right past the mess and took a swing at one of the remaining tentacles searching for me. Then he reached an arm over the side. “Come on up, Sir Matt. Let’s get you out of here, so I can have my fun.”

  Jo zoomed by and cut another tentacle.

  I watched her for an instant, then locked arms with the giant man. He pulled me up and over the edge like I was a kid. His BO never smelled so…no, it stank like death, but I choked back my natural reaction, so I didn’t offend him.

  “Thanks, general.” I scanned what he’d done. The two creatures that had him earlier were now just bottom halves. Raven’s attacker was quickly becoming a pile of slop running through the slats of the metal walkway.

  “Fire in the hole!” Jo yelled as she came in for another pass. She zipped over our heads but slowed down, so she could let off a shot of dragon’s breath upward to the source of the tentacles. That forced them to recoil a bit, but one was brave enough to slap at Jo’s broom before she was able to get clear.

  “Shit!” she cried out. Her broom weaved back and forth as she tried to keep control, but she went down in a spiral toward the concrete floor on the far side of the warehouse. I couldn’t see her after that.

  “Jo, you OK?” I asked on the link.

  Anton pushed me a little. “We must move back, Sir Matt. I’ve got this.”

  I had no idea what his deal was, but I let him reposition me because I was listening for my Korean witch.

  “Wait,” I said to him in an off-hand way.

  A tentacle pushed the big man into the railing, which caused it to bend.

  “Fuck, what’s with all these tentacles?” I shouted like it had bothered me one time too many. “Am I fighting Cthulhu?”

  On the link, I repeated my call for Jo.

  She finally responded. “Yeah. I’m fine. I haven’t crashed like that since I was a kid on my bicycle.”

  A loud crack exploded from the corner with the enemy team in it and a section of railing in front of Anton sparked wildly as the bullet struck there.

  I lost my shit. I ran up to Anton and faced the hostile corner. “Shoot the fucking monster! Not us!”

  They shot at us again, but I didn’t see where the bullet went.

  “Raven. Out.” Anton turned serious. “Back up, Sir Matt. We are too exposed up here.”

  For once, I agreed with him wholeheartedly and without overthinking it.

  I was still pissed as hell, so I paused long enough to fire a few rounds into the dark corner. Each shot ricocheted wildly when they struck the concrete over there, and one even came back over the scaffolding with the stereotypical whine-buzz you hear in the movies.

  “Fuck this,” I said mostly to myself. I was frustrated at being tossed around, shot at, and doing zero damage in this battle.

  I backed up and dropped a couple of steps down the stairs to wait for Anton and his wolf to come off after me.

  “Think, Matt. Get in the fight.” I spoke quietly to myself to settle my nerves.

  Anton waddled down the platform like he was coming off a cruise ship, and he’d been acting weird since right before Merkur introduced herself, which only gave me the sense of urgency that I was going to have to do something.

  “Banger, where are you?” It was time to use all my tools.

  “Master, I am awaiting orders at your feet.”

  I looked down and sure enough there he was. The black cat blended in perfectly with the shadowy steps.

  “Good boy,” I replied. “I want you to go around this loop platform until you have eyes on those four fuckers shooting at us. Be careful of the green goo.”

  Banger and Raven passed each other at the top of the steps and the big wolf made like he was going to follow my cat, but Anton grabbed him before he could get away.

  “I need you close,” the old man said so quietly I practically had to read his lips. When he saw me looking his way, he grinned. “I’m sorry, young friend, that I got you wrapped up in this. Spells are fickle when you are my age.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about, but I was sure of one thing: we needed to regroup.

  ***

  “Jo is OK,” I said first before pointing over the yellow stream. “Let’s get over that way.” The direction would take us toward the Wellspring Encampment.

  “This monster is huge. Should we go back out that way?” Tex pointed to the small doorway we used to come inside.

  “I don’t trust what’s outside that door. The other team could run out to the toilet paper warehouse, go under the water, and come up to this door. The small lock won’t hold shit. Besides, we have to cross the yellow river on this bridge.”

  “And I am destined to fight this creature to the death,” Anton added like it was no big deal.

  “No, we avoid those tentacles as much as possible. Whatever that lady is, I want to stay away from her.”

  I glanced back up to the shape of the lady still standing by the girder. I knew by her shape she was the same as those other green goopy things that attacked us, but she seemed content to oversee her minions. Her patience made her dangerous.

  Anton still didn’t seem in a hurry. “You do what you must. I am sure this is where my story ends. In one last glorious battle.”

  I shook my head, not sure if he was talking sense anymore.

  Banger called to me over the link with a series of mechanical meows, like he’d digitized his own voice and then used it as a ringtone. “Master, I have a report.”

  “Tell me something good,” I responded.

  “A full belly and a warm bosom to snuggle,” he replied.

  I gave Tex a sideways glance, sure she wouldn’t know why. />
  “No, tell me what you see, cat!”

  “Understood. I have found some of your fuckers. I can identify two shapes hiding inside the building. I have no information on additional fuckers.”

  I’d asked him to find those four fuckers, and he took that literally.

  “OK, good work. Fish treats for all once we get somewhere safe.” I was going to have to find some, but I relished such a challenge as long as I lived beyond this crazy warehouse complex. “Meet us at the…” I had to remember my map and my directions. “Northwest corner of this structure.”

  “Understood. Relocating.”

  Jo flew in from over the yellow river, as if she’d travelled well outside the grip of the overhead tentacles at the well. When she landed, I reached to give her a hug but changed my mind at the last second.

  “I’m glad you’re OK. Was there anything over there to worry about?” I pointed to the corner where I’d sent Banger.

  “No, it’s just us and the shooters in the far corner. Plus, whatever that thing is in the middle.” Jo thumbed toward the bridge.

  “OK, guys,” I said aloud. “We head up the steps here, go left over the yellow water, then down the stairs on the other side. Stay clear of those tentacles.”

  It seemed obvious, but I knew from those role-playing days if you didn’t spell things out with as much detail as possible, people will misinterpret your intentions. That’s why I figured my magic required the specific drawings in my phone. It kept the confusion at bay.

  “Jo, back in the air, OK?” Outside the warehouse I worried she’d be spotted by other witches, but Merkur said it herself: Jo was the only witch in here. She could fly around all she wanted.

  She stepped back, swung her broom under her, winked at me, and took off.

  “Two friends safe,” I thought.

  “Tex and Echo, stick with me. Tex you are going to be our shield. Make it hard for them to see us.” I trotted over to the generator and kicked over the tripod holding the spotlights so the light in the room dimmed some more. “And this will help make it even harder to see us.”

  When the lights fell and turned off, the interior space became a nightmare red on the ceiling. The remaining lights on this half of the warehouse were on the far side of the red river. A little light still shined through the eight open garage doors around the warehouse, but it was almost sunset, so natural light wasn’t much of a factor.

  The three of us gathered at the base of the steps. The red river blocked us from view of the shooters, so that was good, but the woman by the girder remained fixed on us.

  “Anton, you coming?” I asked.

  “I’ll be right behind you,” he said in a tone that made me immediately doubt him. Even my detailed instructions couldn’t ensure everyone followed them.

  “Focus on your people,” I said to myself. There was no time to figure out what was going on in the old man’s mind, but he was clearly reliving some kind of past battle, because he seemed to be having too much fun.

  For a split second, I worried the general might forget where he was and skewer me in the back, but I swept that aside as an overactive imagination. If he wanted me dead, he wouldn’t have pulled me up from the chasm’s edge.

  “Tex, give us cover.”

  Her Blend ability kicked in and she matched the color of the staircase metal. Her pants and shirt blended as well, and as I stood right next to her my arm seemed to darken, like I’d absorbed some of her aura.

  “Echo, follow Tex,” I said on the link.

  She smiled and bounded up the stairs like a playful kid. She stopped next to Tex and waited for me to come up.

  “Lookout!” Jo shouted from above and to our right.

  The tentacles grew larger and had gotten a lot closer to our staircase. They now hung out over the middle of the chasm, like their source was hiding somewhere in the shadows of the roof.

  Jo flew by and smacked one with her boot.

  “Holy fuck! That hurt!” the witch banked hard and got out of there.

  Her foot had cut most of the way through one of the tentacles. The foot-wide tube was almost completely severed and hung by a thread as it decided if it was going to fall into the pit, but at the last second, a nearby tentacle reached over and absorbed the damaged one.

  “Run!” I shouted.

  The tentacles weren’t the only things coming for us. At least ten of the green goo figures stood on the walkway, one after the other, holding the poles with lariats on the end. They stayed by the woman still watching us from near that girder, but pressed on us like she drove them forward.

  We were clearly the stray animals to be rounded up.

  ***

  Anton rushed by me and headed to the left, out over the yellow river. My first instinct was that he was fleeing the battle, but I didn’t figure it out until he bent over and picked up one of the lariats.

  He looked back at me when he had it in his hands. “I need the purple river. Move your friends this way.”

  The red river was to our right. The strange woman still held her spot on the bridge above it. The purple river was directly across the fifty-foot wide chasm from her. The rest of us needed to at least follow Anton across the yellow stream.

  “Back up, guys. Run!” I shouted.

  The ten figures didn’t so much walk as drift along the foot bridge. I finally saw how they were attached to tentacles that crept along the base of the walkway as if they were humanoid hands at the ends of long support tubes.

  It was all one creature.

  Jo banked hard as she came up from our corner of the warehouse, then she held out her bayonet blade and lopped off the first two heads and caught a good part of a third. She turned again over the red river to our right, which caused gunfire to erupt from the far corner again.

  Tentacles waved around in the middle of the pit as they hung down from the roof. It was almost like they were afraid to commit to battle for fear of being cut off, but they followed us around the bridge like they had to keep watch.

  Anton was already at the purple river. Raven stood next to him and watched the tentacles with his fangs bared. The general had his pole over the far side of the bridge, so I couldn’t see what he was doing with it. However, as we neared the steps on the safe side of the yellow water, he seemed to catch something.

  “Got ya!” he shouted.

  The ten walkers continued around the bridge and began their way across the yellow river. I motioned for Tex and Echo to go down the steps, but I had to see what Anton was up to.

  The gray-haired general pulled his pole back up and a large black shape came up with it. He let it fall to the decking on the far side of him, and he released the lariat from its neck.

  “Kill!” Anton shouted at it.

  The animal was another wolf, like Raven. It wasn’t quite as large, but it was younger and meaner in appearance. As soon as Anton gave the command, it barked a few times, which got a similar response from Raven. The new wolf spun around and ran the other way.

  As soon as it was away, Anton dropped his pole back over the side.

  “Run, my friends!” the general shouted. “These creatures won’t know you are an ally when they get through all of Merkur. They’re wild!”

  One of the gunmen in the far corner took another shot. A big hole appeared in one of the headless walkers, but it felt like I was the real target. I stepped down off the walkway to be with Tex and Echo, so I was out of sight of the shooters.

  The ground next to the headwaters of the two streams was strewn with clothes and shoes, just like on the other side. Three shredded dragon suits were off to the side of the purple stream, as if they’d been deposited there after a whole team had fallen in the water. Just like Anton’s boot, all the clothing went upstream.

  “We have to clear out of here,” I said to my friends as I pointed to the nearest exit. There was a normal sized door in the corner, like the one we used to come in, so that employees didn’t have to walk through garage doors all the time. The en
campment, and the target of my mission, should be right outside.

  Anton pulled another wolf out of the purple water. His first one had run around the bridge, over the green river, and was now tearing into the last humanoid in the line of walkers. I looked for the original woman because she should have been the first enemy in line, but she was now hanging from a tentacle out in the middle of the pit.

  “Jo, see if you can sever the cord holding that bitch to the ceiling.”

  My broom-riding brunette had been staying low next to the red river, probably to stay out of the sight of those guns, but she shot upward once I gave her the order.

  “I’ll get her,” Jo replied.

  Anton’s second wolf ran around the scaffolding bridge and fell upon another of the green goo men. The wolf jaws were ferocious in tearing the things apart and I started to feel like we had an edge in this fight, but the first one in line was now coming down the steps right in front of me.

  “Echo,” I started to say.

  “I’m on it,” she answered without hesitation.

  She seemed to know precisely what I wanted, because she stepped close to the yellow water and made two arm-like extensions reach out and pull at the first glob guy. As soon as he touched the stream, it seemed to suck him in. The length of slime attached to the doomed man seemed to hold on, but when it started to thin out from being stretched, the tentacle cut itself free of the doomed figure.

  The second man in line stood at the top of the steps, but this time two tentacles were attached to it.

  “She learns,” I said aloud.

  “Of course, I do, Leftover, and I learn fast. You are no ordinary opponent, so I’m pulling myself together as we speak. I think it’s time to air this body out a little.”

  I sensed the cocky attitude of someone that needed to get her ass handed to her, but I honestly didn’t know if she had an ass. Fighting a gelatinous mess was no simple thing.

  By the time Anton pulled out the third wolf, the original two wolves had cleaned out at least four of the original ten slime creatures. If what Anton said was true, the wild wolves might not stop when they killed the next five.