One Grave at a Time (Night Huntress #6)(45)
“You need to get the f*ck out of my house,” Denise snarled.
I hadn’t taken my attention off the hornet’s nest of silver knives around us or the ghost who could somehow amass enough energy to make me feel like I was going ten rounds with an undead Mike Tyson, but then something large and dark filled my peripheral vision. I glanced over where Denise had been—and stared.
Bones yanked me down just in time to avoid a silver knife headed right for my cheek. It landed in the wall behind us instead, but I still couldn’t quit glancing back at the other side of the room. Helsing let out a frightened hiss and tried harder to hide in the bed and furniture pile.
“Bones, she’s . . . she’s . . .”
I didn’t say more, but pointed. His gaze flicked over, and then widened as even his finely honed defensive instinct couldn’t cause him to look away from what was now an incredibly fast-growing mass. Almost absently, he held up his shield at the new influx of knives thrown his way.
Cracking sounds of the ceiling giving way alerted Kramer into turning around. When he did, the knives he’d levitated for imminent attack fell to the ground, and the ghost froze like he’d magically been welded to the spot.
“Drache,” he managed to croak.
The bottom half of a huge creature now took up the majority of the once-spacious room, part of its neck and all of its head disappeared into the hole it had made of the ceiling. Curved scales that looked tougher than crocodile skin formed a green-and-black design over the creature’s body, darkening in color as they reached its quad-runner-sized legs. A tail wider than my torso whipped out, knocking over the broken bits of furniture scattered about the room before settling in front of me and Bones like a living, flexible barricade. Two thick, horned humps unfurled from the creature’s back, revealing dark green wings that took up what was left of the room even though they were only half extended. Their spiked, clubbed ends stabbed holes in the carpet as the creature appeared to use them to balance its great body. Then more wood and plaster rained down, and a new, larger hole appeared, quickly being filled by a massive, elongated head punching through the ceiling. Its jaws were as big as the bed, saucer-sized crimson eyes glaring right at the transfixed ghost while scales like a headdress flared out behind it.
“Denise, you have outdone yourself,” Bones murmured in astonishment.
I still couldn’t form words yet. Yes, I’d seen Denise shapeshift before, once into a cat and once into an exact replica of me when she acted as my decoy. But I had no idea that she could manifest something of this magnitude. Not ten feet in front of me was what could only be described as a large dragon. One that looked straight out of the movie Reign of Fire—only slightly smaller, because this dragon seemed to be only about two stories tall and I think the one from the film was double that size.
If she manages to breathe fire, I thought in numbing awe, I might actually pass out.
Kramer remained frozen where he stood, almost as if he thought staying still would render him invisible. He seemed to have forgotten that he had the ability to poof away, because from his expression, he didn’t want to be anywhere near the enormous dragon glaring down at him with rows of teeth gleaming from a snarling mouth. Yet, with the creature’s tremendous girth, Kramer was practically in the dragon’s lap.
Glass exploded outward as a piece of porch furniture hurtled through the bedroom window. It didn’t go far, bouncing off the dragon’s hind leg and almost flattening my cat, who huddled in terror behind the remains of the bed.
“Room service!” Ian sang out, appearing in the smashed-open window. He had lit sage overflowing both hands, but when he saw the dragon, he froze just like Kramer had, his fanged mouth dropping open.
“Bugger me blind and bowlegged!”
“Don’t just stand there, throw the sage,” Bones ground out.
Ian shook his head as if to clear it, then he threw the sage at the ghost, who howled as he finally tried to whoosh out of the way.
More plaster and wood showered the room in the next instant. Then Spade appeared in the huge hole he’d made in the wall by the blocked-off bedroom door. I scrambled to protect my cat just in time, grabbing Helsing before the bed-and-furniture barricade collapsed on top of him. Spade, too, was packing sage, and between the huge snapping dragon that Kramer didn’t seem to want to poltergeist through, and the two vampires throwing lighted greenery his way, Kramer couldn’t dodge the flying plant missiles fast enough. With a spate of harsh-sounding German, he disappeared.
“What in the holy hell is that?”
Tyler peeked around Spade’s bulk, more smoldering sage in his hands, to gape in disbelief at the dragon. His thoughts careened from disbelief, to fear, to fascination as the dragon’s form wavered, began to shrink, then finally culminated in Denise wearing nothing but a few spatters of blood.
Ian appeared to have recovered from his surprise. He gave Spade an almost accusatory look.
“You’re shagging a woman who can turn into a dragon? Blast you, Charles, I am sick with envy!”
“Not now,” Spade muttered, pulling off his shirt and placing it over Denise. I tried to yank the blanket off the remains of the bed, but it was too tightly wedged in with the other furniture, and I only ended up tearing off a long piece.
“Kitten, this first,” Bones said. Then he began to pull the knives out of me where Kramer’s blades had found their mark. I winced at each sharp, efficient tug, the silver feeling like it tried to take hunks of my flesh along with it.