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She snarled, ‘A geranium?’ and then Mare rocked as talons raked at her mind, red claws cutting through the rope of then powers, smearing the colors into grays, Lizzie screaming as red mist filled the air, and then she realized she was screaming, too, and Crash hit her hard, knocking her to the ground, cutting the co
Dee felt the hit of energy like an explosion. The geranium was gone, and Xan had turned. All Dee could see was dark red. Old bloodred. She was shaking hard with the energy she’d expended, holding on by her fingertips to Lizzie, and she knew it had all gone wrong. The flow reversed. The rope of their powers tangled and snapped, a living thing that whipped back at them like a live wire. Lizzie screamed and Dee tried to pull her free, but she couldn’t manage it; she couldn’t see. All she could feel was that terrible shriek of energy shattering around them, and then she was on her ass, the co
She scrambled up, thinking it was Xan, but it was Crash who’d hit them, knocking them around like bowling pins and snapping the co
Now.
It was an instant, and it was filled with rage, with the weight of the accumulated years, with the liquid crimson viscera of Xan’s avarice that collected and solidified and grew. Suddenly out of the bloodred mist a dragon rose, black and skeletal and stinking – Xan, her mouth open in a scream of fury. Her eyes glittered crimson. Her neck arched, snakelike, as she reared up to strike Lizzie where she lay helpless on the ground, and Dee thought, Yes, Da
Lizzie stood frozen, staring up as the huge black dragon reared overhead, bearing down on her, lethal, merciless, and then it was engulfed in a cloud of green fog as Dee attacked.
Oh, God, not an owl, Lizzie thought, horrified. They were all going to die. But then Dee speared upward, out of the thick fog, and even in the darkness of the storm, her green and gold scales glittered brilliantly. She had outdone herself- a magnificent Chinese dragon, soaring through the air, flying straight at the black and red Xan beast with a shriek of rage. For a moment, the older dragon wavered, and little Py leaped beneath them both, aiming for Xan’s huge black tail with the same determination he’d shown for Lizzie’s bu
With a scream, the black dragon fell back beneath Dee’s fierce onslaught, howling into the wind with rage and pain, and red mist flew upward like a tornado. The creature within it began to shift again, narrowing, changing, pulsing, until a huge snake remained, black, malevolent, only Xan’s glowing red eyes left with any trace of humanity, all of it bad.
‘Lizzie!’ Mare cried. ‘Do something!’
She wanted to hide. All her power, her self-assurance seemed to have vanished, and she was terrified, helpless. Her sisters were going to die, Elric was going to die, unless she did something. And then she felt it – the power rumbling against her heart, the amethyst pendant burning, and the strength flowing through her, not just her own, but Mare’s, Dee’s, Elric’s, all the power of the universe was surging through her veins, so strong that if she threw a transformation spell it would hit Dee, as well, turning her into a frail human who’d never survive. She tried to move, to get between the two massive combatants, one so ugly, one so beautiful, but the lightning was flashing all around them, and even as she finally slipped between them the snake focused on her, rearing its huge head to strike.
‘Lizzie!’ She heard Elric’s furious cry of warning, and it pulled the last bit of energy through her, enough so that she looked up, arched her back, and threw the spell upward, directly in the face of the snake, as purple smoke exploded around them.
Mare saw Xan draw back to spit poison at Lizzie and lunged to drag her away, but a huge violet crack of lightning split the sky and purple smoke rolled up, gushing over the landscape. Mare screamed, ‘Lizzie!’ and crawled toward where she’d last seen her, hearing Crash yell and then a roaring, and then the rain began to fall, beating down the smoke. As it cleared, Mare saw Lizzie standing like a warrior queen, her arms encircled; and beyond her Dee, human again, sitting naked on her butt in the mud; and beyond her, Crash eyeing a large tiger who looked as confused as he was; and beyond them, Maxine, naked, too, looking startled and guilty as all hell; and in front of all of them, a giant gold snake, frozen in the attack position, glistening in the violet rain.
‘Huh.’ Mare looked up at Lizzie, and then at the giant gold snake, and then back at Lizzie. ‘Finally got that gold thing down, did you?’
Lizzie took a deep breath and smiled and dropped her arms. ‘Yes. Yes, I did. Told you I could do it.’
Da
‘She looks like a giant war memorial,’ Da
‘Yes,’ Elric said. ‘If the war was really strange, and the victors were really rich.’
‘Maybe we should make a nice plaque to commemorate the event.’ Mare shoved her wet hair out of her eyes, trying to wrap her mind around it all. ‘With something from the Evil Overlord Rules. Like Rule Thirty-four: ‘I will not turn into a giant snake; it never helps.’ She looked at Maxine. ‘Hi, Maxine. So, you were a frog?’
Maxine picked up Jude. ‘Yes,’ she said defiantly, cradling him in her hands, trying to pretend she wasn’t naked.
‘Okay, then,’ Mare said and turned back to Crash, who’d come up beside her, keeping an eye on the tiger.
‘She tried to take your powers,’ Elric said, his arms around Lizzie, as he stared up at the snake. ‘That’s why she wanted you all up here united to save us. She wanted your powers bound together so she could take them all’
‘Bitch.’ Dee dusted off her hands.
Py gave up staring at Crash and came up and rubbed his huge, wet, furry tiger head against Mare’s leg. ‘Hello, baby,’ she said, scratching him behind the ears. ‘Do you feel better back to normal? Kind of normal?’
‘So it’s over?’ Lizzie said, safe in the circle of Elric’s arms.