Yellow Brick War (Dorothy Must Die, #3)(42)

“I do,” Lulu said. I looked at the brave little monkey and realized what she meant.

“Lulu, you can’t. He’ll eat you out of the air.”

She shrugged. “Die in a blaze of glory, right? You want to get close to the pooch from hell, I’ll take you. Just don’t say I never did anything for you.”

“Amy,” Nox began, but another of Dorothy’s soldiers interrupted us.

“No time!” Lulu yelled, hoisting me into the air as Nox parried the soldier’s blow. My stomach lurched as Lulu swung me wildly over the battle. Too bad flying monkeys didn’t come with seat belts.

Toto and Dorothy didn’t see us until we were almost on top of them. Dorothy had one hand on Toto’s neck, and I could see the power pulsing there, flowing directly from her body into his. Her eyes were sunken into huge, dark hollows, and her hair was lank and lifeless. She slumped over on Toto’s neck as if she barely had the strength to sit up straight. Turning Toto into the Hulk of house pets was taking a serious toll on her. I thought of my mom, hollow-eyed and worn after a bender. Dorothy looked the same way. Oz’s magic was killing her. Nox and the Wicked were right: it would eventually kill me, too. But right now, it was the only way. One set of Toto’s jaws snapped shut, and the bottom half of a monkey fell out of the air as Toto gulped down the rest.

“Ready?” Lulu said. I wasn’t. I had never been more terrified in my life. But it didn’t matter.

Before, when I’d used Oz’s magic, it had been like turning on a faucet—like something I could control, even if I didn’t always understand it. But something had changed. I remembered what Nox had said to me before Dorothy had pulled us into Kansas: that Oz’s magic was coming back, and that it had a will of its own. I could feel it, like some massive, alien awareness behind the flow of power. It was like I’d unleashed a raging torrent. The magic was powerful enough to knock my consciousness out of my body, sending my mind floating upward as Lulu carried me toward Dorothy. I could see everything happening around me at once, like I was watching a movie screen: Nox and the monkeys, fighting side by side; Mombi and Gert fighting toward them, their faces drawn with exhaustion; Glamora and Glinda, evenly matched and still locked in battle, oblivious to everything happening around them—even Dorothy and Toto. I could feel power backing up inside me, and faintly understood that I’d tapped into something that had the potential to destroy me. But there was no stopping this magic. I was like a leaf floating down a raging river. All I could do now was try to survive whatever it was that I’d let loose.





TWENTY-FOUR


I’d tapped into the same dark, dense magic that had transformed me once before. This time, I gave in to it. Do what you will, I whispered. I felt my body changing, expanding. Lulu’s fingers lengthened and sprouted dark tendrils that wrapped around my shoulders and sank into my flesh. Her arms melded into my back, and I could feel her own wings stretching outward, ribbed and leathery like a dragon’s. Horns sprouted from my forehead. Serrated teeth split outward from my gums and I opened my widening mouth in a roar. My fingers were lengthening into claws, my arms and legs rippling with new muscle covered with velvety-soft emerald-green fur. I was changing into a monster. And I liked it. The feeling of unparalleled power. The wings pumping at my shoulders, bringing me closer to my enemy. Dimly, I could hear Lulu’s voice at the back of my mind, like a bee buzzing in a glass jar, but I didn’t care.

Toto reared up to meet me. A blast of rank, hot breath hit me full in the face as I swung my knife toward the first of his three heads. Time seemed to slow down as my blade met his scaly flesh and sliced through it like a hot knife through butter. His head went spinning to the ground, its mouth still open in a roar and the stump of his neck spurting huge gouts of black blood. I danced away from the snapping jaws of his other two heads, moving as fast and as nimbly through the air as a dragonfly despite my size. Dorothy was clinging to the ribbon tied around Toto’s central neck, staring at me with something in her eyes that I realized was fear. In one smooth motion, I cut off the second of Toto’s heads. “No!” Dorothy cried as Toto’s remaining head roared in pain and rage. She let go of his ribbon and tumbled off his back. I drew back my arm, ready to run her through as she fell, but something stopped me. There was something about killing Dorothy that I couldn’t remember. Something important . . .

Toto lunged for me, snarling, and knocked the knife out of my claws. I threw myself at him and sank my fangs into his scaly throat, tearing it open. His hot blood coursed over me and I lapped it up as I clung to his throat. The monkeys swept in for the kill, hacking away at his remaining head. I darted away just in time as Toto crashed to the ground, his eyes already fixing in death. I landed next to his corpse. The monkeys backed away from me, raising their weapons. I could see myself reflected in their eyes, twisted and monstrous. And I loved it. Being a monster felt incredible. I could do anything, kill anyone. I could destroy them all. Oz would be mine. . . . And then something flared to life deep inside me. Something silvery and cool like a mountain stream. Silver strands of light wrapped around me, holding me tightly. Come back, Amy. It was as if Dorothy’s shoes were speaking to me somehow. Preventing Oz’s magic from taking over my body completely.

“Amy!” Nox’s voice brought me back to myself. He was running across the battlefield, screaming my name. Amy. I was Amy. I felt the dark magic churning within me, unwilling to let go. Release me, I thought. Please, release me.