The Firedragon (9 page)

He let go of her shoulder, gave her one last
stern look, and then walked away.

Aurelia remained where she
was, standing as if her feet had frozen to the ground. A fangbeast
… the one monster she truly feared. So they weren’t extinct, after
all. Williams was an expert in all things monster-related, and
if
he
didn’t see
a way for her to beat the creature, there likely wasn’t one. The
lore books taught that when the Lord of the Underworld had released
his monsters one hundred years earlier, the fangbeasts had been his
favorites. And for good reason – they were
lethal
. She’d heard stories about
entire squadrons of Defenders being mauled by a single fangbeast.
How was she, a lone fighter, supposed to handle a creature that
could split itself into infinite clones?

Maybe Vilk was right.
Maybe the Challenge
was
all a charade to show the people how scary the
supernatural could be.

But she shook her
head.
It doesn’t matter. I have to finish,
or the Triumvirate will win.
If she did as
Williams told her to and quit, the people would see a Norm fighter
running away from the competition. Instead of showing that Norms
were as good as Enchanters, she would be reinforcing the idea that
only the magical could fight the monsters and protect the cities.
The government would keep scaring people into absolute obedience …
and the world in which she lived would remain unjust. But if she
defeated the greatest enemy the government threw at her, she would
prove once and for all how capable Norms were. The future of her
kind was in her hands.

She wouldn’t let them down.

A fangbeast is nothing but
a pack of wolves, and I’ve taken on a pack of wolves before.
She squared her shoulders and marched forward,
determined not to let the fear enter her mind again. Instead, she
repeated to herself the reasons she’d had for wanting to win so
badly:
Beat the Enchanters, prove that
magic doesn’t make them superior to Norms.

And change the world.

This was it: The
final
contest. And Williams had been right
– the champions were up against a fangbeast.

Aurelia had thought she’d be put in the
arena with the monster, on her own. Instead, though, the Challenge
officials had transported her and the other nine champions to
random areas of a city that had been destroyed during the war
against the Lord of the Underworld. A fangbeast – the first to
surface in fifty years – had been spotted there.

The thought of facing it made her heart
quake. She couldn’t keep her mind from wandering back to the tales
of horror she’d heard about past fangbeast encounters – like the
one about the monster who got past one city’s perimeter and
attacked a factory full of workers. By the time the Sentinels
arrived, there was nobody left to save. She may have been the best
in the qualifying round, but she was still just one girl, up
against a never-ending army of beasts. Why had this seemed like
such a good idea? Why had she thought she could take it?

She closed her eyes. Fear made her tense and
shaky, both of which hindered her ability to fight. She needed to
think about something to relax herself. The first comforting image
that popped into her head was Connor’s friendly smile, but the warm
feeling it brought quickly disappeared as she recalled what she’d
done to him. She hadn’t been allowed to see him since she knocked
him out, and though she’d considered finding a way to sneak into
his room anyway, she’d known he wouldn’t want to see her.

The thought of facing his accusing eyes had
been unbearable.

Realizing that she was letting her mind
wander, she brought her focus sharply back to her surroundings. The
last thing she needed was for the fangbeast to catch her while she
was lost in thought. Now she regarded the burnt shells of broken
buildings towering over her, some of them looking ominously close
to collapsing. Cracked, faded signs hung crooked over the dark
doorways, which led to rooms littered with destroyed furniture. A
featureless gray sky stretched overhead, and the smell of rotten
garbage mixed with ashes wafted through the air.

“
Manhattan,” she muttered
to herself, repeating the name of the dead city. “Weird thing to
call a city.”

She and the other champions had each been
given a motorbike to get around, a mini Procul Mirror to see what
was being broadcast to the viewers across the globe, and a simple
instruction: Find the fangbeast and kill it. A handful of
Sentinels, cloaked in invisibility, were flying above the city with
Eye Stones to capture the action, watching her every move. And
Williams wanted her to beg them to save her from the monster.

Screw that. I’m going to
kill it.
She was more determined than ever
to win this competition, now that she’d seen how serious it was.
The Enchanter who’d been mauled by the manticore had only been the
first of the contestants to fall. At least a third of the nominated
Defenders and Enchanters had been killed in the qualifying round –
felled by monsters in gruesome, terrifying ways. But while that
fact disturbed her, she couldn’t let it distract her from her
goal.

Norms around the world
were counting on her, and she refused to let the Triumvirate get
away with their plot. They were setting people up to die, and
counting on the Norms to die first, so that the Enchanters had a
reason to stay in power. But if
she
, a Norm, killed the fangbeast,
then their scheme would be ruined.

With that in mind, she jumped onto her
motorbike and sped down the empty asphalt streets, narrowing her
eyes against the wind.

Where to start?
She knew from fangbeast lore that they liked
ashes, and were attracted to supernatural fire. But this city was
full of ashes, and she didn’t have anything magical on her. That
didn’t leave her very many options. So she’d start the hard way –
by driving around and searching until she found the
beast.

Suddenly, the motorbike’s engine went dead.
Aurelia tried to restart it, but nothing happened, and she tensed,
feeling beads of sweat form on her face. This was no time for the
bike to fail her. It could have been a mechanical malfunction, but
given where she was, she knew better than that. A haunted,
destroyed city like Manhattan was certainly home to more than a few
spirits, and their presence would cause anything mechanical to
fail.

Something supernatural was lurking.

She jumped off her bike and pulled her
double swords out of the sheaths strapped to her back. The
temperature around her dropped, but she wasn’t sure if it was
actually growing colder, or whether her own nervousness was
chilling her. Even the overcast sky seemed to grow darker. The
hollow concrete buildings around her trembled, filling the air with
a low rumble, and then the ground beneath her feet shook. An icy
wind, carrying a disembodied cackle, blew sharply past her.

She shuddered.
Specter …

This was bad – really bad. Her silver blades
would keep the spirit away from her, but she had no way to get rid
of it. As a Norm, she was physically incapable of banishing a
specter, and practically a sitting target.

She looked around the street, but didn’t see
anything other than the quivering buildings, whose dark and empty
windows stared like dozens of vacant eyes. Rusted lampposts, all of
which were either fallen or close to falling, lined the sidewalks,
and bits of trash – torn clothing and wads of paper – tumbled past
them. Otherwise, there was no movement. That was good. As long as
the specter wasn’t strong enough to become visible, she stood a
chance of outrunning it. She shook her shoulders to make herself
relax; specters fed on fear, and the more frightened she was, the
quicker it would find her.

Before she could move any farther, a chunk
of concrete fell from one of the shaking buildings, smashing onto
the pavement. High, wicked laughter followed it, reverberating
through the street, and circling her. Which meant the specter knew
she was there – and was targeting her.

She was out in the open, totally alone,
against a spirit she couldn’t defeat. Though she couldn’t see it,
she knew from the swirling wind that it was closing in on her.

She whipped her double swords by her sides
like a pair of propellers. If the specter tried to attack her, the
silver would keep it back. Keeping her blades moving, she bent her
knees and dropped into a defensive position, ready to make a mad
dash. But where would she go? Would she be able to keep spinning
her swords as she ran? She didn’t know – she’d never tried. Each
time she’d found herself facing a specter before, she’d had at
least one or two Defenders as backup, and they’d warded off the
spirits with their silver-loaded pellet guns.

Just then, a gruff voice shot toward her.
“Get down!”

Aurelia dropped to the ground, and a loud
blast split the air. Something stung the top of her head, and an
unearthly shriek echoed against the buildings. Another blast rang
out, and then another … and another … and another. The specter’s
cries crew more and more piercing, and she wanted to cover her
ears, but had to keep all her senses alert. Wind whipped around
her, so cold it seemed to carry with it all the chill of winter.
Meanwhile, the blasts kept coming, forcing the specter to
retreat.

One final, ghostly scream tore through the
street, and then went silent. The air became still, and the
buildings stopped shaking.

Aurelia jumped up, her eyes darting around
to see who had fired those shots. She saw Vilk striding toward her,
holding a large pellet gun – the kind she was accustomed to seeing
in the hands of Defenders – and did a double take.

“
Two swords?” he asked,
regarding her with a look of disbelief. “That’s all you
brought?”

“
They’re all I need!” she
shot back, annoyed that he’d barged in and helped her.

“
What would you have done
about that specter if I hadn’t shown up? Twirl those things
forever? It’s a good thing the Sentinels were watching you and
broadcasting your activities with the Eye Stones, or I wouldn’t’ve
known where to go to save you!” he snapped.

“
You didn’t save me!” she
shot back.

Vilk shook his head. “You’re a real brat,
girlie.”

“
And you’re a jerkface, so
bug off!”

“
Like hell.” He grabbed
her arm. “You’re sticking with me from now on. Last thing I want is
to see a little girl torn to pieces.”

Aurelia sputtered
indignantly.
Little girl?!
She twisted her arm to free it from his grasp,
and he released her. She wished she could kick him for treating her
like a child, but held back. After all, he
did
just help her out of a sticky
situation, whether she liked it or not.

“
Look at this.” He yanked
his mini Procul Mirror from his belt. “They make the Challenge
sound like some noble quest. The world’s best monster fighters,
killed in a gallant effort to rid the Triumvirate of the
Underworld’s most fearsome beast. Lovely tale, isn’t
it?”

He shoved the mirror in Aurelia’s face, and
she couldn’t help looking at it. The image in the mirror showed one
of the other contestants – an Enchanter from the Confederacy of
Western Europe – holding up a domed blue force field. The man’s
eyes were intense with concentration, but something about his
expression revealed the fear he had to be feeling. He must have
already found the fangbeast.

The view widened, and her
blood ran cold as the fangbeast –
fangbeasts
– came into sight. About
a dozen hound-like creatures, with sharp teeth protruding over
their jaws and glowing horns twisting between their ears, jumped at
the Enchanter’s shield. Each tore ravenously with its ferocious
claws, snapping its jaws and staring with blazing, merciless eyes.
The Enchanter straightened his stance and hardened his mouth, but
his wide, darting eyes betrayed his terror. Though the monsters
were many, they all had a single goal: killing him.

They were real. No longer
just illustrations in textbooks, but actual living, breathing
fangbeasts. She’d
known
that, of course, but seeing them in action was
something else entirely.

Then they abruptly stopped clawing and
backed away from the enchanted dome surrounding the Enchanter,
moving in unison. Aurelia felt her whole body tense, right down to
her fingers, which gripped her swords so tightly that she could
feel every groove in the hilts. Why had they stopped? What were
they doing?