Insatiable

Not that it mattered. Meena was still going to do everything in her power to keep him from being obliterated by a combination of the NYFD, the NYPD, the Palatine, and the Dracul, whatever he was, man or beast. Or vampire.

“Oh, he’ll turn back eventually, when he stops being so angry,” Emil said. “In the meantime”-he glanced over his shoulder at the police officer who was now shouting into the church on a megaphone for them to put down their weapons and come out with their hands on the back of their heads-“Mary Lou and I are leaving. I would suggest you do the same, Miss Harper.”

And with that, both of them disappeared before Meena’s eyes. One minute they were there, and the next, there was nothing at all where they’d been standing, except twin wisps of mist.

Stu

He was after much bigger game.

She was going to wake up soon, Meena decided. Because this all had to be a nightmare. She was going to wake up in her own room, with Jack Bauer in her arms, and it would be morning, and the sun would be shining, and everything would be okay. None of this would have happened. She would get up and go to work, and-

“Meena!” She heard Alaric calling to her from somewhere across the church. “Meena!”

Then she saw him. He was standing directly behind the dragon.

“Move!” he shouted at her, and made a get-out-of-the-way gesture with his arms, indicating that he wanted her to step away from Abraham.

And right then-in that moment-she knew exactly what he and his boss were pla

Abraham would shoot at Lucien, distracting him with another stake to the neck.

Then, while Lucien was roaring over the pain of that, Alaric would run up onto the dragon’s back…

…then slice off its head.

Alaric, Meena concluded, was crazy. Especially if he thought Meena was ever going to let this happen.

“You’d better do as he says, Miss Harper,” Abraham said, lifting the crossbow to his shoulder and taking aim. “I know this is painful for you. But trust me, it’s the best way. I promise you’ll feel much better when it’s all over.”

As Abraham was speaking, the dragon, which had finished its latest meal, looked around. It had been weaving its head back and forth on its long, serpentine neck as if searching the apse for its next victim. But now it finally froze…and squared both Meena and Abraham in its sights.

Those gigantic, crystalline eyes focused directly on them, unblinkingly, like a snake’s. All the hairs on the back of Meena’s neck stood up as the dragon stared at her. She saw a stream of smoke release from its nostrils. The noxious odor of sulfur engulfed them a second later.

“Oh, dear,” Abraham said, freezing with his finger on the crossbow’s trigger. “I think-”

Meena reached up to undo one of the hooks on the messenger strap of the dragon tote. It slid down from her shoulder. Then, clasping the strap in both hands, she swung the bag as hard as she could at Abraham, the weight of her laptop inside catching him full across the back.

“What-?” he cried as he stumbled.

He didn’t go down, though. He was too heavy and had far too much experience.

His shot, however, did go wild.

What happened next wasn’t part of Meena’s plan.

Chapter Fifty-nine

12:30 A.M. EST, Sunday, April 18

St. George’s Cathedral

180 East Seventy-eighth Street

New York, New York

The tip of the dragon’s long red tail shot forward, wrapped around Meena’s waist, and lifted her bodily into the air.

Meena would have screamed if she could have. But she was being squeezed so tightly, she couldn’t breathe.

Plus, she was too terrified to scream.

Sailing over the heads of everyone left in the apse, Meena had a dizzying view of shattered pews, smoldering walls, her dragon tote and laptop sailing off into oblivion, and finally, Alaric’s stu

Because that’s where he released her, with what she supposed a dragon might consider gentle consideration but that in actuality was a landing that caused her to go spi

Too stu

“Meena!” she thought she heard someone yelling from far away.

But she felt too sick from her violent ride through the air-combined with the force with which she’d hit the wall-to respond.

Then Alaric was there, trying to pry first one, then another of her eyes open, checking her pupils, asking if she was all right.

“Go away,” she said. She wanted to throw up. Her head hurt. Her arm hurt. She just wanted to go home.

She didn’t have a home anymore.

“Meena, look at me.”

She looked at him. She could barely see him in the smoky darkness.

But his face looked tight with concern.

“I thought you had a dragon to kill,” she said.

“Well,” he said, “I guess I missed my opportunity. How many fingers am I holding up?” he asked, holding up two.

“Nine,” she said.

And then the worst happened. The tail returned. Meena sucked in her breath when she saw it, causing Alaric to turn and see it, too. It flashed dangerously red through the smoke, seemingly searching for something. Meena froze the minute she saw it, thinking, Oh, no. Not again.

It was nice that Lucien loved her so much.

But he really needed to work on his landings.

Alaric seemed to be thinking along the same lines, since he raised his sword, as if he was ready to chop Lucien’s tail off at the tip if it came too close…

Only this time, it turned out it wasn’t Meena whom Lucien was looking for. The tail found one of the supporting pillars that held up the choir loft. It wrapped around it…

…and pulled.

“Shit,” Alaric said, throwing his arms over Meena.

There wasn’t time to do anything else.

Maybe if St. George’s Cathedral hadn’t been quite as old as it was. Maybe if it hadn’t been so badly in need of renovation. Maybe if it hadn’t endured so many shocks from a thirty-ton dragon roaring and breathing fire in it for the past half hour.

Maybe then its structural integrity might have held up a little better.

In any case, taking out that single pillar caused a huge section of the choir loft to come falling down.

Not on them. Just all around them.

Enough to effectively seal them off from everything that was happening out in the nave and apse, entombing them in a sort of dragon-made cave of wood and plaster.

Which, Meena was certain, had been Lucien’s plan all along. He was tired of worrying about her getting hurt. Which was sweet, she supposed, in its way.

But she wasn’t sure how much longer she was going to be able to survive the way dragons expressed their affection.

“Oh, my God.” She coughed. There was a lot of dust.

And Alaric Wulf, on top of her, weighed a ton. As usual.

“Are you all right?” she asked him.

He didn’t say anything at first. This was a little alarming.

“Alaric?”

The force of the cave-in had caused some plywood to shift, popping the wood off a previously boarded-up window, which now let in some dirty gray light from the street. In it, Meena could see that Alaric’s face, above her, was covered in ash and plaster dust. He looked…odd. She couldn’t figure out how.

“Alaric? Are you hurt?” she asked him.