tarnished -- part three -- trekker |
Chapter Ten | |
A Big Dragon |
"So, let me get this straight," Ethan said, as they tromped along the streets of LA, "You *volunteered* us to fight the damn dragon?"
"Er. Well, I volunteered us to help cast the spell. The dragon was simply... part of the package deal."
"I see."
Katie was practically bouncing along beside them, excited at the prospect of seeing a real, live dragon. Ethan was convinced they were all about to be real, dead humans. He rolled his eyes.
"At least someone is looking forward to our inevitable doom."
"Not... inevitable. Highly likely, perhaps, but not--"
"Giles? Shut up."
Giles did shut up, but he still looked far too chipper for a man on his way to a fiery, chompy doom. Ethan decided to watch Buffy instead, since she was a much more appropriate unending fount of angst and hopelessness. As it turned out, she proved more entertaining than usual. Well, she, along with the two vampires who where huddling in the shadows. She was staring at the blonde, the blonde was staring at her, and the brunette, Angel, was glaring at the both of them, and talking. Constantly. Even though the other two seemed to be paying him no mind. Except the blond, who occasionally made a comment in Angel's general direction and then went back to gazing.
"She has a real thing for vampires, doesn't she?" Ethan felt compelled to comment after about a half-hour of this.
"Oh, Lord," Giles groaned. "Don't even get me started."
Ethan chuckled.
Then remembered he was about to die and sobered again. Not that death hadn't always been a possibility, of course. He sighed. He really had to work on his tendency to make impulsive, probably deadly decisions. If he lived. Which, of course, seemed unlikely.
"Oh for god's sake," Giles said, after another few blocks. "You're not going to die. We have six Slayers, two vampires, a zillion-year-old demon, and one of the most powerful witches in the world on our side. Last time I fought a dragon it was only with a vampire, a thousand-year-old ex-demon, two witches, and Xander."
Ethan glanced over at the young man in question, who was currently enthusiastically recounting the plot of a comic book with Andrew. They were supplying character voices and sound effects and occasionally acting out the more important panels.
Ostensibly, this was to provide moral support to the Slayers--a small handful of whom were actually watching with at least some form of amusement--but Ethan suspected those two would behave like that even if they were alone in a room with no windows. Though, after a moment, that particular thought took a turn that even Ethan was loathe to contemplate.
"Right," he said. "Good point."
Still, when their group split off from the main army, Giles looked like he was perhaps having second thoughts.
***
Willow heard it well before they saw it. It made a deep, wheezing, snuffling sound as it breathed, and its claws scraped and clattered on the pavement. They'd taken the back way, through twisty alleys stuffed with old trash and occasionally bodies. Willow had nearly decided it might be worth casting that spell that made you not able to smell stuff regardless of the whole no-nose factor when Buffy brought their group to a halt and turned to her. "So, we're all clear on the plan?"
"Yup," Willow said.
The plan being as soon as they got in sight of the dragon, quickly cast a silencing spell to keep it from summoning the troops. After that, the plan was, verbatim, "Kill the dragon." That sentence was helpfully underlined three times, just to make sure they didn't forget that important step of the process.
They all gathered close together after that, bunched into a herd like nervous cattle. Or just like nervous humans, which they were, all except Spike and Angel and the blue demon girl. They could all hear the dragon-noises now. Not just the loud grunts and scratches, but also the footfalls and the leathery rustle of wings. She tensed, remembering their last encounter with a dragon. A small fledgling, according to Giles. This one sounded more like a fully-grown dragon. Fun. Even the little one had been, well, big.
The closer they got, the less they smelled the garbage and the more they smell the rank scent of carnivore and sulfur. It made her miss the garbage.
They stopped at the mouth of the final alley. It had grown darker and darker as they walked, and here, near the portal, it was dark as night. The darkness shielded the portal and the demon world beyond from the sun, but had the benefit for them of allowing Spike and Angel to fight alongside them.
They all looked at her then. She still hated being put on the spot.
"Come on, Will," Kennedy said, "You can do this."
"This, I can do," Willow agreed. "Closing the portal? That's gonna be the tricky part."
Then she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and cleared her mind. A quick chant, a rush of power, and then the huffs and grunts of the dragon vanished abruptly. The nail-on-a-chalkboard screech of its claws on the pavement, however, remained painfully present. That was ok, though. It couldn't call down the troops, and that was what mattered.
"All right," she said, "That's it."
She glanced back at the group. Everyone looked at least a little nervous, but most of the Slayers, even little Katie, seemed ready to go.
"Ok," Buffy said. "Let's go."
So they went.
***
It was, indeed, a dragon. A big dragon. And behind it, as advertised, was the portal, a great, dark rip in the night. The dragon or something had knocked down the neighboring buildings and had made a nest of the twisted steel beams and concrete, atop which it now sat, with its neck twisted around... apparently grooming itself like an incredibly large, incredibly ugly gerbil.
Incredibly large being an understatement.
They were all going to be lizard chow.
"Hey!" Buffy shouted, "Down here!"
Ethan groaned.
The dragon slowly lifted its head and turned its heavy neck, and looked down at them all from up on its nest of rubble, almost disdainfully. Then it snorted, open its mouth and--
No, it didn't try to roar for help. Of course not. Why should it bother, after all, when it could just *breathe fire on them*. The group had a moment to yip with panic and scramble out of the way. All but for Ethan and Willow who, as simultaneously as synchronized swimmers, raised their arms and shouted, "Pyrus Repellio!"
And then the flames engulfed them.
Then the flame was gone, and they looked at each other, and Willow grinned. "Magicy instincts," she said, and he found himself grinning back.
For a second.
And then they both scrambled out of the way as huge dragon jaws smashed shut right where they had been standing. Ethan didn't stop running until he'd climbed up a nearby stack of rubble, and found a small indentation where he'd be relatively out of the way. There was, perhaps, shame in running and hiding, but quite frankly, he was a sorcerer, not a fighter, and he was not going to be standing around in the middle of the field of battle. Death was much much worse than shame. In most cases.
As he turned back to the battlefield, he found things in full swing. The fighters had charged the beast, waving swords and shouting back and forth. The dragon was swinging its head this way and that as though confused as to why these small creatures were bothering it. Frankly, Ethan didn't see what Katie found so charming about the beasts. They were nothing more, really, than an overgrown reptile with a very bad case of halitosis, in his opinion.
Then, stunningly quick for a thing of its size, it snapped up one of the Slayers. Mystical strength had nothing, apparently, on being swallowed whole.
Like a shockwave had gone through them, the other fighters lunged backwards. Ethan felt sick. He wasn't even sure which of the Slayers it had been. Couldn't tell, in the hustle, who was still present. The dragon paced forward and the fighters fell back more, like foam chased by a tide. They were shouting to each other, still.
Ethan slung his bag off his shoulder and dragged out his candles, lighter, knife, and chalk, and began to create a power circle. He looked up every few seconds, watching as the fighters began to move in again, in quick charges and feints, avoiding the dragon's reach by precarious inches it seemed.
He froze, though, still holding a burning candle, when he looked up yet again, to see Giles and Katie mere feet away from the hind foot of the big creature. They were watching the foot, and watching the head. Not watching the big, spiky tail, which was swinging around in a dangerous-looking manner and now was--
"Immobilis!" Ethan shouted, almost without thinking, dropping the candle, flinging only his own raw power into the word.
The dragon, for a moment, froze, and Giles looked around, saw the spikes moments away from him, and grabbed Katie and yanked her out of the way, just as the spell released and the tail swung through where they'd been only a heartbeat earlier.
Ethan shook as he sat down on the rubble. That had been far too close.
Then he noticed something. The dragon swung its head around and looked straight at him. Oh crap. He snatched up the candle he'd dropped and finished lighting it, then got to his feet, his mind sorting through and discarding possible incantations.
The dragon was pounding his way, each step shaking the earth. It unfurled its huge wings and looked just all the more imposing. It was incredibly hard to think of Latin conjugation with a giant lizard bearing down on oneself.
In fact, in the end, the truth was, he would have been dragon bait if it had been up to him. Sadly, keeping his head in a crisis really wasn't his best talent.
Fortunately for him, however, the dragon was so focused on charging over to eat him up it failed to notice that Buffy had caught hold of it and clambered up its scales. That would be the downside to being so heavily armored... a lack of sensitivity to little humans scampering across your back and up your neck and then, two seconds before you eat the obnoxious little sorcerer who messed up your fun, ramming their sword through a chink in your scales and into your brain, killing you instantly.
The dragon collapsed to the rubble with an earthshaking roar. Buffy leapt free of the chaos as neatly as a house cat.
Ethan sank back against the wall of rubble behind him, his knees shaking too hard to hold him up on his own. A moment later, Giles scrambled up beside him, asking if he was all right, if he was hurt. He shook his head.
"Nice work," Giles added, "With the immobility spell."
"Ah. Yes, that was... yes," Ethan said, still not entirely coherent.
Giles ran his hands up and down Ethan's arms, briskly, as though checking for brokenness, then he stepped back and looked down at the dead dragon.
"My. It's... it's big, isn't it?"
"You notice that *now*?" Ethan said.
"Well, I'd *noticed*, it's just now I'm... noticing."
Ethan managed to pull himself away from the wall and peered down at the dead thing as well. The remaining Slayers and the others were standing around the immense body. To scale, they were about the size of rabbits next to a water buffalo. Its teeth were about the size of a man's hand, which Ethan could see clearly because Angel was currently attempting to pry one of them out. Dragon's teeth were quite useful, though it had never really occurred to him he may one day see one in its natural habitat. He usually bought them all neatly powdered and utterly unthreatening. He had once needed one intact, but apparently that one had come from a much younger dragon.
Angel wrenched one of the fangs out and trotted over to Buffy, who was inspecting her sword which was still stuck through the dragon's head. He held it out like a cat offering its master a dead bird. Buffy's reaction fit the metaphor perfectly.
Angel looked befuddled, then turned and climbed up the rubble toward Giles and Ethan.
"Hey, you want one?" Angel asked, holding it towards Ethan, much to Ethan's surprise. "Kinda traditional for the people who killed the dragon to get one."
"I didn't--" then he remembered how much he'd paid for that damned tooth. "Thanks," he said, taking it carefully by one of the less-bloody bits.
"Hey," Angel said, "In our line of work, even distracting the big chompy thing is part of the team effort."
"Ah," Ethan said, though Angel was already climbing back down. Ethan looked down at the tooth, then up at Giles, ruefully. "I'm sure it will serve as a lovely reminder of one of my more humiliating moments."
Giles laughed, and then kissed him.
"I think you were brilliant."
Ethan wasn't sure, but he thought he might actually be blushing. No... probably not.
Then Willow was calling up, "Hey, is that a good station for you, Ethan?"
He stepped to the edge and looked down again, nodded. "I've got my power circle mostly prepared."
"Ok! Tell Giles to get down here. I think I found a spot for him."
Ethan turned, mock-dutifully, to Giles.
"Get down there, she's found a spot for you."
"Yes, thank you. I heard," Giles said, drolly.
Ethan watched Giles pick his way back down the rubble. Watched him closely, the way he moved now, with more care than he had in his youth, but still with the same grace of a fighter. His strength showed through in flashes as he navigated the concrete and steel, gripping handholds and turning and lowering himself. There was, as always, a powerful beauty to him, that captivated Ethan now, the same as it had when he was young, the same as it always did.
He looked away when Giles finally hopped to the ground, and found Buffy, looking up, watching him watch Giles. She looked away quickly when she saw he'd seen her, and then walked off to join the Slayers who had gathered near the base of the portal, on guard for unanticipated guests.
Ethan turned his attention back to completing his power circle. He took his time, now. He cleared off the dust and debris from the relatively flat slab of concrete he stood on, then redrew the chalk circle around himself. Then he carefully lit and stationed each candle. He sat in the center of the circle and shut his eyes when that was done, then drew a deep, slow breath, centering himself.
He stayed that way, breathing slowly, letting the lingering adrenaline and terror fade away. Slowly, he felt the build in him, around him, the power gathering. He could sense the power of the portal, pulsing and hot. He could sense the power of Willow, a bright whiteness on his mental eyes. And then, faint but growing, he could sense Ripper's power, cool green.
Willow's voice began, then, her chant carrying clearly over the ruins. The power rose with each word, all of their magics drawing in towards the rift between worlds and beginning to swirl around the edges. Ethan shut his eyes and focused on the energies, waiting until it was his turn and then picking up the chant from Willow.
His own power surged sharply with the words, the power of the earth flowing up through him. It tingled in his chest, almost pleasurable as sex, and he almost smiled as he spoke. Now this, this was what he was meant for.
It was almost a letdown to allow the next verse of the chant to pass to Giles.
Only for a moment, though, and then Giles picked it up and the power surged again. Their power, combining into a white heat around the flickering red of the portal, beginning to pull into the center, beginning, at the top and bottom, to stitch the tear shut again.
Willow's power was the strongest flavor in the mix, something sweet, like berries. It nearly overwhelmed the ozone tang of Giles' magic, and the salt metal of his own. She could have carried this spell on her own, but it wouldn't have been good for her. He and Giles were merely her safety net, unnecessary support. Still, when they reached the next stanza, speaking it together, feeling the rush of that strong power was more than worth being nothing more than an adjunct. And then, the rift abruptly tightened halfway closed in one jolt. Angry, excited pleasure. He vaguely heard the Slayers commenting.
Willow took over the last verse of the chant, and all he had to do, all he could do, was hold on and let the power rip through him, pour into the rift, and then, like yanking a noose around the top of a sack, the rift jerked shut. A moment... and then it was gone, as though it had never been there.
***
Everyone gathered under where the portal had been after that. Except Jenn, of course. Their one casualty. Giles reached the group before Ethan and Willow. Willow joined them next, flushed but grinning with triumph.
"That was *great*!" she said. Giles smiled and caught her when she threw herself at him, hugging him.
"Sorry," she said, stepping back, sheepishly. "I get, like, caffeinated after a good spell."
He smiled, and then Ethan reached the group, looking much mellower than he had the last time Giles saw him, shortly after almost being eaten. He came up to Giles and bumped against his side, slipping an arm around his waist with no hesitation.
*And why should he hesitate?* Giles asked himself, sternly. *You're among friends here.*
Kennedy certainly wasn't showing any hesitation...
Giles averted his eyes discreetly.
Then Buffy came up to them, with her arms crossed.
"Hey," she said, and to Giles' surprise, she was addressing Ethan, "You ok?"
Ethan looked taken aback for a moment then said, "Fine. I'm fine. Thank you. Nice... stabbing."
She smiled halfway.
"Well, it's what I do," she said. Then she turned to Giles. "Guess we'd better go and see how everyone else is faring, huh?"
He nodded.
"Then can we go home?" Katie asked, appearing beside him.
"I certainly hope so," Giles said. "I think I've had just about enough of, er, not-so-sunny California."
tarnished -- part three -- trekker |