The head struck the ground hard. I followed, striking, lifting, striking. Each hit took another chunk from its neck. The muscles of my arm burned. My blood was rushing out of my injuries. I stumbled, but kept going. The head rose, trying to get away, trying to escape the hungry ax.
Too weak, I couldn’t follow it. I was about to pass out. The Nachtmar was coming apart all around me, great chunks of the creature disintegrating and falling to explode on impact. I couldn’t reach its head, but its body was still here. I turned toward its torso and just in time to be hit by one of its falling limbs.
I found myself on my knees. The dragon had lost too much mass to remain cohesive and its body began to split and flow into dead nightmare slime. The dark body became translucent and I could see the opposite side of the street through it as it melted.
There…
Deep inside of the dragon’s chest cavity was a small, misshapen figure, manlike, the size of a child, only twisted and distorted, its limbs too long and uneven, its head too big. It was the actual alp, the actual form of the creature here on this plane.
It stared at me with big red eyes. It knew I was the cause of its failure, the cause of its banishment and future starvation, and its last act of defiance in this world would be to kill me. The remainder of the dragon’s body turned, angling itself to fall and crush me beneath. I lifted Lord Machado’s ax, and with all of the strength I had left, hurled it through the air. It spun, end over end, as the alp’s already gigantic eyes widened in fear. The ax split the dragon’s belly, but my aim was off and I only struck the alp on one side.
The alp let out a silent scream, bubbles appearing in the fluid around its mouth. It began to disintegrate around the ax wound, but it was still alive for the moment, and the melting dragon corpse took another tottering step toward me. I was about to be crushed.
A second object came flipping through the air, only this time the aim was true, and the bone handle of a knife suddenly appeared in the center of the alp’s face.
It was the Black Heart of Suffering. The tiny creature seemed to swell the instant it was struck by the knife. It twitched and jerked spasmodically, wailing in agony that none of us could hear…It thrashed as its form broke into pieces.
And then it was perfectly still, floating in the bowels of its gigantic creation.
“Good shot, Mosh…” I croaked as I turned to look over my shoulder. Mosh was there, but he was staring at his open hand that had just had a magic knife snatched from it. Standing next to my surprised brother was Edward the orc. Well, that makes more sense. Ed’s clothing was scorched and charred, but he was in one piece. Ed raised one arm defiantly and flipped the bird at the dead alp.
The nightmare dragon was dead, and what was left of it was splitting into multiple chunks, spreading apart, with long mucus strings dangling between the pieces. I got to my feet. Deliriously thinking that I really needed to get my arm looked at before I bled to death and that I was still really close if this damn thing decided to fall on me.
I was hit hard in the neck. I reached up, found something hard jammed in there and pulled it out. It was a dart. “Son of a…”
But then the remains of the Las Vegas Strip rushed up to hit me in the face.
Chapter 27
I woke up slowly in a hospital. Not the best place to wake up, but at least I was waking up, period…That meant that we had won. It took me a minute to remember what we’d won against, and how I’d wound up here. We’d defeated the Nachtmar.
Everything was fuzzy. Looking down. One of my feet was in a cast. My toes were ugly and purple sticking out the end of it. Looking to the side. My opposite arm was also cast. I could feel the dull ache of other injuries, and the itch of stitches in several places over my body. I’d gotten messed up. Again. Despite being hurt, I didn’t care about myself. The only coherent thought I could latch on to was who else had made it? Who had we lost? I looked to the other side…
“Stricken…” I croaked.
The head of the nefarious Special Task Force Unicorn was leaning in the corner, watching me from behind his strangely colored sunglasses. “You’re awake. About damned time.”
He sounded funny, like I had water in my ears. I was still too doped up to be angry, but I still tried to sit up. I tried a few times, but couldn’t quite make it. I gave up and sunk back into the pillows. I’d kill him later. Right now I was just tired and thirsty.
Stricken walked over and stood over the bed. It was the first time I’d met him in person. He was too tall and too thin. It was like he tried to avoid the sun coming through the miniblinds. “Owen Zastava Pitt…I’m going to make this simple for you. I’m going to ask you some questions. Your answers will determine the rest of your life. Ready?”
“Up yours,” I whispered.
“Let me set the stage for this next question, help you get in the right frame of mind.” He gave me an eerie smile. “You met the dragon under the casino.”
“Management?”
“No. The other dragon. Yes, Management, you idiot. While my people were investigating the scene, it came to my attention that our dragon friend had a problem with eavesdropping. That’s a terrible habit. Shows a real lack of character. So here’s my question. What do you know?”
I meant to say fuck you, but what came out instead was, “Nemesis.”
Stricken chuckled over my surprise. “Don’t be alarmed, Mr. Pitt. There’s a potent chemical cocktail in your IV bag. You couldn’t lie to me if you wanted to…I was afraid of this. What do you know about Project Nemesis?”
“Nothing about what it actually does. Something big, I think. You want it. Franks and Myers don’t. It scares them. You’d let everyone die to make your point.” It hurt to talk, but I couldn’t stop. It was like there was no stop between my mouth and my brain. “Heard you…”
“I was afraid of that.” Stricken picked up a pitcher of water. “You look thirsty. Want a drink?” I nodded. My mouth was very dry. “Who else knows about this?”
I bit my tongue until I could taste blood.
There was something sinister about the way Stricken leaned over me. Like he was an undertaker and I was in a coffin. It made me giggle. “Don’t be like that, Mr. Pitt. What else do you know?”
“Your real plan…”
Stricken filled a plastic cup with water from the pitcher. “Oh, really? And what would that be?”
“The Last Dragon and all those folks dying wasn’t the important part. They were just targets of opportunity when you figured out how tough the Nachtmar was. You wanted to expose Hunters to it. You knew it would think we were tasty. But even if you got your permission to do your project, you’d still have to deal with Franks, and he’d just kill you, because he just don’t care. Even if you aren’t scared of him, your collaborators are. This whole thing was to push Franks over the edge.”
That caused him to pause. “Interesting. Go on.”
“Sure, the deaths would help your agenda, especially since it was a bunch of professional Hunters. That ought to scare ’em. But you knew you’d get that permission anyway eventually. But then Franks would stop you. You need him gone, but he’s too important to just pop. You set this up. You made it impossible for him to do his job without breaking the rules…You knew what he’d do. Franks can’t not do his job. But now that he’s in trouble, you’ve got an excuse to get rid of him.”
Stricken was nodding along. “That dragon was way more tuned in than I expected.”
“Naw.” I waved my good hand dismissively. “I figured that out myself.”
“Remarkable,” Stricken agreed. He put the water cup on the table next to me. “You MHI types are just full of surprises. What else do you know?”
“You plan on killing me.”
“Well, that goes without saying. Anything else?”
“You’re not gonna kill me.”
This was amusing him. “Want to bet?”
“You can’t kill me because I’m the only one that can stop the real bad guy…He’s coming.” I sang that last part for some odd reason. It made sense at the time. “You know he’s real. You’ve seen his signs all over the place…Wanna know a secret?” I lifted my head and tried to lean in conspiratorially. I couldn’t even whisper right. “I’m the Chosen One.”
Stricken stepped away from the hospital bed, stroking his pointy chin thoughtfully. “I see…” like that messed with his schemes.
“Yep. I’m the Champion of everything. You kill me, you’re on your own. I don’t know what your fancy secret Nemesis thingy is, but it won’t work. You’re gonna need us. You’re gonna need me. Like, my family’s been prepping for this for like forever. Prophecies and stuff, generations of this kind of thing, people coming back from the dead. The works.” My words were really slurred. The stuff in the IV was potent. “He’s scared of me.”
Stricken didn’t seem convinced. “You really believe that, don’t you?”
“Yup. It’s my destiny.”
“Hunters never cease to amuse me. I’m not too worried about this new threat. I know all about him. With Nemesis assets in place we’ll be able to handle anything the other side throws at us. No more being puppets on a string for a bunch of cosmic superpowers and their endless bickering. I’m changing the rules of this game once and for all.”
Stricken turned and walked to the door, then paused, deep in thought. “But, tell you what, Pitt, just in case you’re not completely delusional…I wouldn’t drink that water if I was you.”
I looked over at the cup, then back at Stricken, but he was already gone. I hadn’t even seen the door move. I reached over, picked up the cup of water, poured it back in the pitcher, dumped the whole poisonous thing into a potted plant next to the bed, and went back to sleep.