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Ash’s team cleared their sector of the city one building at a time, finding enemies in every single one. Ash supposed that made sense. Most of the vampires Maksim would have been able to call would be night-bound, and they’d intentionally attacked during the day to catch their enemy at their weakest. She found no trace of Jules until they turned a corner and found him standing in a debris-strewn yard.
Jules didn’t look like any Therian she’d ever seen. He looked dazed, and the right side of his body was weighed down by a massive, misshapen arm. His skin had a gray pallor, and abnormal growths distorted the lines of his body. He spouted tufts of fur or patches of black and violet scales in several places. He looked half dead already to Ash. He watched them with a desperate look in his muddy red eyes and stumbled forward, mumbling something none of them could understand around his swollen tongue as black ichor oozed from his mouth and eyes.
After a long lifetime avoiding death, Jules wanted nothing more than to die. He’d long since lost the ability to speak, and his mind was too fragmented for telepathy, so he couldn’t even make his plea. Maybe if he attacked, they would end his misery. The horrible fate Maksim had cursed him with was worse than anything he could imagine, not having grown accustomed to suffering despite the vast amount of it he’d caused.
He took another lurching step forward, his distorted body beginning to glow with a strange violet light beneath his skin. Jules bit hard on his swollen tongue, severing it and freeing the space for the purple flames that burst from his mouth. The flames stuck to everything they touched, melting it into a formless goo. Ash reacted in a split second and threw up a golden shield, but two of the stragglers at the back of the group—a vampire and Therian she’d only just met—were caught in the blaze and suffered a horrific death. Viktorija chanced a look behind her and wanted to vomit. The charred remains of their compatriots littered the ground, and the smell choked the air with its awful truth. Viktorija turned to Ash, whose copper eyes were blazing brighter than she’d ever seen.
“It’s time for this asshole to die. I don’t want to lose one more fucking person today,” Ash growled.
Viktorija nodded and they took off toward Jules, running in synch. He was glowing with the sick violet light again and seemed to be preparing to spit another gout of flames. Jules opened his mouth to attack and Ash grabbed Viktorija and teleported them out of the path of destruction. Coming at him from a new angle, Ash threw her foot out in a spinning kick, catching Jules with a vicious high kick to the underside of his jaw.
His teeth snapped together, cutting off the flames. The unexpected hit forced him to swallow the fire, and his body began to glow from within as it swelled.
Viktorija didn’t have time to think about it. She wanted to run but didn’t even get turned entirely around before Jules exploded like a giant man-sized water balloon with a sickening wet sound. The dragoness was covered from head to toe in the Therian’s entrails.
She heard a gasp and turned around slowly to find Ash and the others covered in nothing more than the blood they’d worn when they started the fight as her golden shield protected them.
“You fucking bitch,” she accused, pointing from the disgusting mess she was drenched in to Ash’s clean body.
“I’m so sorry!” Ash cried. “I wasn’t trying to be funny. You were too close to him to include in the shield without blasting us.”
Viktorija threw up her hands, sending several wet chunks of something flinging in Ash’s direction, though they bounced off the shield and slid to the ground with a nasty-sounding plop. The absurdity of the situation struck her, and she laughed. “This is not what I meant when I said I’d be covered in jewels. Oh, it’s so gross. Can you do something to help me out here?”
Ash waved her hand, siphoning the mess away from her skin and clothes until Viktorija was as clean as she could hope to be in the middle of an extended battle. “You good?”
Viktorija nodded. “Thanks. That was disgusting.”
“Anytime,” Ash said. “Okay, people, one of the big bads down, one demon spawn from hell to go.”
“I’ve just gotten a report from the other teams. The majority of the resistance forces have been taken out,” Niletean said. “Attacking during the day was a genius move.”
Ash smiled grimly. “What our morally challenged foe lacks in strategic abilities, he makes up for in batshit crazy zealotry. Cover me for a few minutes? I’m going to slip into his head and ring the dinner bell. This needs to end, and we all know I’m the thing that will draw him out of hiding.”
They formed a protective circle around Ash, who stretched her mind out, searching for Maksim. She found his unique energy to the north, and when she entered his mind, she found him destroying a set of monitors displaying camera feeds.
Aw, poor Maksim. Your plans never seem to work out, do they?
He spun, expecting to see her standing behind him.
Try again, buddy. I’m in your head. You can’t escape me. You did all this to get me out in the open, Maksim, and I’m here now. Why don’t you come out and play so we can settle this once and for all?
I’ll kill you! He roared in rage.
Ash snorted impatiently. Sitting here waiting for you, bud.
Before Maksim pushed her out of his head, Ash got an image of the command tent. The connection worked both ways. When she opened her eyes, she smiled. “I have to go, guys. He’s heading for the command tent, and I need to be there to stop him.” Ash didn’t wait for the discussion about why it was a bad idea to go into the battle alone.
Maksim stomped from the cabin and burst into his dragon shape, then launched into the air and flew south to meet his fate. She’d humiliated him time and time again. He wanted to rip her limb from limb, savoring the taste of her blood as he destroyed everything she cared about. He hurtled across the miles separating him from his enemy and arrived in minutes to find Ash standing between him and the vulnerable humans he’d kill to hurt her.
He bellowed with rage and sent black flames at her. Ash conjured her golden shield as a dome around the tent, and it repelled the fire. He spun and sent his razor-sharp projectile spines at her like missiles, but they hit the shield and fell to the ground. He couldn’t touch her, let alone the humans she protected.
What are you? he roared into her mind.
Your death, Ash calmly answered.
Maksim reared for another attack, not expecting Ash to go on the offensive. She lashed out with a whip made from a tendril of golden light, wrapped it around the base of one wing, and yanked hard. The dragon screamed as she severed the wing, and he crashed to the ground.
How? His frustration was evident in every syllable. You’re so small and not even a dragon. How can you stand against me?
