Part 23 (1/2)
”Maybe he's headed back to his castle to establish his evil empire. After all, he can rule the world from there just as well as anywhere else.” Groaning with despair, she tugged on Colin's sleeve. ”We can't leave the amulet in his hands, you know. If we can't get it back, then we'll have to find some way to destroy it.”
”But if we destroy ita?”
She finished the thought before he could. ”I'll never get home.” She gazed helplessly at him, tracing the rugged features she'd come to know as well as her own. A future with him would mean bitter-cold winters with no central heat or electric blankets. But a future without him would mean bitter-cold springs, falls, and summers for the rest of her life. She flashed him a tremulous smile. ”It's a risk I'm willing to take.”
His tender scowl meant more to her than all the smiles in the world. He reached for her, and even though she was lying in a ditch with gra.s.s stuck in the most unlikely places, his touch still made desire burn thick and hot in her veins.
He pressed a fierce kiss to her lips, then plucked a rose petal from her hair. ”You may not have your charm, la.s.s, but you're still a bonny witch. You can defeat him with your magic. I have faith in you.”
His solemn regard only worsened the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. ”Colin, there's something you should knowa”
But before she could finish, a sound both terrible and familiar reached their ears, throbbing like a jungle full of natives beating a single ma.s.sive drum. The ground beneath them began to tremble, then quake a” a thousand times worse than it had on the day Brisbane's men had come thundering out of the forest.
”I have a very bad feeling about this,” Colin murmured.
They both peeked over the rim of the ditch. The meadow was still deserted, but deep in the forest, the tops of the trees were beginning to sway.
Colin drew his sword and started to rise, but Tabitha latched on to his ankle with both hands, dragging him back down.
”Colin, you can't! Brisbane will destroy you. You heard him. He blames you for stealing his sister's heart away from him.”
He struggled out of her grip. ”I can't just lay here on my belly, la.s.s, and let him slaughter us. If I can lure him out, then you can use your magic to defeat him.”
”That might not be such a good a” ” She grabbed for his ankle again, but he had already vaulted over the rim of the ditch and was striding boldly toward the center of the meadow. She scrambled up to stand at the edge of the ditch, refusing to cower while he marched so bravely to his doom.
The rumble swelled until she couldn't tell its rhythmic boom-boom from the shuddering of her heart. In that very moment when she thought she would scream if something didn't happen, Brisbane's creation came cras.h.i.+ng out of the forest, paralyzing her scream into a squeak.
From its spiny tail to its majestic head, the dragon was armored in s.h.i.+mmering emerald scales. Tabitha recoiled, squinting at the curious creature. It wasn't a particularly graceful dragon. It came galumphing across the meadow, huffing and puffing like one of Puff's asthmatic cousins from the land of Honah Lee. If one of its clawed feet hadn't been large enough around to squash Colin into the gra.s.s, leaving nothing but a smear, it might have been comical instead of intimidating.
As its clumsy charge gathered speed, its fat legs pumping like pistons, Tabitha whispered, ”Please, G.o.d.” Suddenly it wasn't enough to invoke some watered-down concept of a Higher Power. This time, she was placing a person-to-person call to Colin's G.o.d, in all of His might, majesty, and mercy.
Colin had taken his stand in the middle of the meadow. He stood with legs splayed and sword outstretched, refusing to betray even a trace of fear. He'd probably been dreaming of this moment since boyhood. Just waiting for the opportunity to engage an enemy who wasn't chosen by his king or his church, but was instead a monster of pure malevolence, deserving of its fate.
As the dragon raced toward him, it threw back its serpentine head and loosed a bone-rattling roar that made Tabitha long to clap her hands over her ears.
Instead, she covered her eyes with her hand, unable to watch Colin fling himself into the jaws of death as he had so many times in the past. But when she stole a peek through her fingers, he was glancing over his shoulder at her. And that one panicked glance proved once and for all that Sir Colin of Ravenshaw had finally found something to live for.
He looked at the charging dragon; he looked at her. Then he began to frantically backpedal his way across the meadow.
”Tabitha!” he yelled. ”Do something!”
Laughing through her tears, she reached for the amulet before remembering it wasn't there. She would just have to rely on her own G.o.d-given talents this time. Her magic might not be strong enough to defeat Brisbane's enchanted dragon, but she could certainly put something in its path to distract it.
She just hadn't planned on that something being a brigade of shuffling mummies. One minute she was wis.h.i.+ng she knew what her mother would do in a situation like this and the next, the meadow was full of moaning zombies. How her brain had made the connection between ”mommy” and ”mummy” she would never know. The creatures shambled blindly about, arms outstretched, tattered wrappings trailing through the gra.s.s behind them. Oh, well, she thought ruefully, at least they weren't mummers.
The dragon stormed right through them, his ma.s.sive tail cracking like a whip. He stomped on some and hurled others high in the air like crash test dummies, snapping off heads and limbs with equal glee.
Tabitha grimaced, shooting G.o.d a silent prayer of thanksgiving that Colin hadn't met a similar fate. At least the mummies were already dead. She frowned. Or were they undead?
Having made short work of her first line of defense, the dragon whirled around, searching for fresher prey. Colin had made it to the shelter of a lone oak, but between the dragon and the tree lay a squirming saddlebag.
Tabitha gasped. Lucy! The saddlebag must have fallen off when Colin's stallion had dashed for the forest.
Her frantic wish had the opposite effect she'd intended, for suddenly the meadow was teeming with kittens of every hue. They milled around the dragon, rubbing their furry little heads against his squat legs and mewing plaintively.
She cast Colin's tree a desperate glance, wondering if he was beginning to suspect her magic had gone haywire without the amulet to direct it.
The dragon might have begun making hors d'oeuvres of the bewhiskered darlings if Arjon hadn't come staggering out from a nearby stand of oaks, sneezing with every breath. It was fortunate his eyes were watering so badly he couldn't see. Tabitha feared the sight of that many felines might send him into a panic.
She must have done something right, for with her next breath, the kittens vanished, leaving Lyssandra free to dart out and drag Arjon back to their shelter. But the squirming saddlebag remained, a vulnerable target for the dragon's wrath. Tabitha held her breath as he waddled over to it, each thud of his clawed feet shuddering the ground. There was something disturbingly familiar in the way his aristocratic nostrils flared as he lowered his ma.s.sive head and sniffed at the leather pouch.
Tabitha dared not trust any more of her desires to wishes. It was almost as if Colin knew what she was going to do before she did. He started out from behind his tree at the precise moment she went running across the meadow, holding her skirt high and yearning for a st.u.r.dy pair of Dockers.
Terrified the dragon was going to devour the helpless kitten in one chomp, she dove for the saddlebag, planning to scoop it up and race for the woods before the dragon even saw her. She might have succeeded if not for the extra inches of silk Granny Cora had sewn to her hem. Just as she snagged the pouch and hooked it over her shoulder, the clinging fabric tangled around her legs, sending her sprawling to her knees at the dragon's feet.
”Don't move, Tabitha,” Colin barked from directly behind her. ”Don't even breathe.”
Having never been particularly good at following orders, Tabitha slowly lifted her head to find the dragon's jagged, glistening teeth an inch from her nose. His breath reeked of carrion and brimstone and she began to tremble in primitive horror.
But nothing was more horrible than the sound that rumbled from his throat when he threw his head back to the sky and began to laugh. It was in that moment that both she and Colin realized that Brisbane hadn't just summoned a demon from the bowels of h.e.l.l. He'd turned himself into one.
And hanging around his scaly neck on a golden chain as thick as a man's forearm was Tabitha's amulet.
Chapter 28.
”This incarnation suits you, Roger. I always knew you were a monster at heart.”
Tabitha ached to see Colin's face as he spoke, but didn't dare move a muscle. Brisbane the Dragon chuckled, sending an icy chill down her spine. A spine soon to be crushed by a foot the size of a California redwood.
”Better a monster than a saint. At least we monsters are allowed to indulge our appet.i.tes with delectable morsels such as your lady. Perhaps just a tastea” Before either of them could react, the dragon's tongue darted out, licking her from chin to forehead.
Shrieking in disgust, Tabitha came up swinging. She would have nailed Brisbane on his bulbous snout if Colin hadn't grabbed her around the waist and dragged her backward. Her joy at being in his arms again was eclipsed by terror as Brisbane stalked them across the gra.s.s. Miraculously, the saddlebag was still hooked over her shoulder. Lucy was beginning to wiggle in earnest.
Colin kept his left arm anch.o.r.ed firmly around her waist. His right was occupied with his outstretched sword, the gleaming blade all that stood between them and disaster.
Brisbane sighed, making them both recoil from the foul stench of his breath. ” 'Twill be the fulfillment of a life's dream to pick my teeth with your bones.”
”I'd rather pick your teeth with my sword,” Colin retorted.
The dragon's lumbering steps picked up speed, forcing them to waltz backward in double time. Smoke was beginning to roil from those gaping nostrils.
”Now might be a nice time for one of your spells,” Colin muttered out of the corner of his mouth.
Given her current run of luck, Tabitha was afraid she'd wish them inside the dragon's stomach and spare him the inconvenience of swallowing them. ”I think you'd better take care of this one. After all, you are my hero,” she whispered back.