The Walls of Jericho

After-effects

The connection between us doesn’t seem to break, even when Channing surges forward. Much to my surprise, he keeps pace beside the Ducati.

Seeing us bolting for the alleyway beneath it, the dragon rears its head back and the deep green glow that backlights its teeth gets brighter. Its jaws open wider. It’s going to spew fire again.It's interesting that it requires a warm-up. I file the information away for use another time. Hopefully. 

Assuming I'll survive this seems kind of dicey right now. I mean really, I'm staring at an actual dragon.

Channing banks left and I wheel the motorcycle right in a tight circle just as the dragon takes aim and spits a blazing ball of plasma fire. The flames miss us. 

Or, the flames miss me. Unfortunately, both of us aren't entirely lucky.

The dragon’s tail whips forward and a long wicked spine rakes Channing up his back and over his right shoulder. It shreds open his clothes, piercing his skin. As a long deep gash opens, a snarling pained howl issues from him. Blood spatters and the dragon huffs in vindication.

Even though its horrible orange eyes track the man’s movements, the dragon doesn’t seem inclined to follow. It writhes, twisting and snapping, wings unfurled and flapping, but it doesn’t move. It sits like a gigantic looming living gargoyle, defending the alley so neither of us can escape.

Toying with me.>

The thought makes me sick and another rush of memories bombard my consciousness. That’s when I know I’m not going to do what Channing told me. I’m going to get my revenge on this dragon if it’s the last thing I do. Not because it stands between me and what I want right now.

But because when I lived as Mia, it killed me. This is what followed from the east. Only this time I’m stronger.

This time, it’s the dragon going to the west and the hungry ocean.  

As I watch, Channing darts left, then right, never drawing close enough to entice the dragon to breathe fire, but just troublesome enough to keep its slitted vertical pupils following, its toothy jaws open and prepared. Its tail thrashes again, raining brick and dust across the park, but it still blocks the alleyway that’s our only exit.

Alright, you jerk. If you’re not going to take the bait and go after Channing, then you’re about to get the mother of all prods to get you moving, dragon. I’ve got some more making out with a certain blue-eyed dreamboat to do, and you’re in the way.

Reluctant as I am to do so, I toss Channing's helmet aside. I don't want anything impeding my vision or the control I have over the energy I draw. The ground beneath me begins to react to the energy coursing through it, quivering and crumpling as cracks open in it then grow wider. 

There’s an ominous humming sound and a tension building in the air. My skin tingles and the hairs on my body stand on end, electrically charged in the continuous current I’m drawing from around me. I see static shocks leap, arcing in miniature lightning bolts between pieces of metal, searching for a ground. A shower of sparks cascades towards the earth as the powerline resistors blow.

Channing makes an athletic leap and the dragon follows, jaws snapping close behind, but its not enough to draw the scaly beast off the alleyway. When he hurls a huge black plastic bag of dripping stinking garbage laying on the street directly into the dragon’s gaping mouth, well, that just pisses it off.

The dragon rears, and its black leathery wings flap. Dust flies and the momentum lifts its huge, clawed feet off the top of the building. It spits the bag back at Channing, roaring in rage, and the sound is enough to hurt my ears. The dragon spews another green ball of fire after the garbage, then inhales. The oxygen drawing into its huge black body stokes the dragonfire inside it. The eerie light illuminates the ground and backlights its long sharp teeth.

Its preparing to roast Channing.

Not on my watch.

My spine stiffens and it feels like my bones are bleeding with the rush of power through me. Pain sears into my head as I hold out a second longer, building the charge a bit stronger. When I unleash the white-hot bolt of electricity, it arrows directly at the monstrous dragon.

The percussive wave as my energy strikes the dragon dead on sends us all crashing to the ground. The earth beneath us shakes violently and a deafening thunderclap shatters the air. As the shockwave ripples outward, it throws me backwards and sends the Ducati crashing down on top of my chest.

Pain lances through me and I hear the grinding crunch of bones splintering in my ribcage. The weight of the motorcycle forces me to breath in shallow pants that aren’t enough to speak. Not even to scream in agony.

Channeling all that energy that I discharged at the dragon sapped nearly every ounce of strength from me. Trapped beneath the motorcycle and left weak as a newborn, I lift my eyes overhead.

Above in the dark sky, the dragon plummets as if unconscious. Its leathery wings and slashing spined tail hang limp as it plunges towards the earth. The impact of its massive body sends another wave of stinging debris and dust rolling and shakes the ground. I close my eyes against the flying grit, coughing weakly as it gets in my lungs. At the perimeter, the strong wind full of earth and dust  smothers the semi-circle of flames the dragon had used to trap us here. The dragonfire sputters but doesn’t go out.

“Jericho!”

It’s Channing’s voice, garbled and gravelly with his own pain. Pulling himself up off the ground, he staggers towards me in a half-run. My eyes still rest on the dragon.

It’s not over.

I can feel it. That orange-eyed evil behemoth isn’t done yet. Channing running towards me makes a tantalizing target for it.

You’ve grown strong, Mia. But you'll never be as strong as me.>

I hear the dragon’s voice clear as a sunny day. But it’s not with my ears. The reptilian predator is speaking directly to me, inside my head. It knows me, just like Channing does. It knows I don’t have anything left to defend or protect myself.

If you will not come to me. You will both die.>

It’s long snakelike neck writhes, orienting the dragon’s head so those savage eyes can track the stumbling man’s progress towards me. Its long crocodile-shaped snout opens, glowing green fire getting brighter as it prepares to spew another burning plasma ball. I must be delirious because, strange as it seems, I hear wolf-song. The long smooth howls interspersed with short yips and raucous barks ring loud over the crackle of flames.

Between my cracked ribs and the Ducati’s heavy weight on my chest, I can’t draw enough breath to shout to Channing about the dragon. There’s no way to warn him what’s coming. That leaves me only one option.

I draw on the energy around me again. Inside my aching head, I hear the dragon’s laughter.

You’re not that strong. You’ll destroy yourself again. I’ll be certain to send your wolf to his fiery grave right after you die.>

The bridge of my nose gives with a soft sickening crunch. The metallic salty scent of blood fills my nostrils as the hot trickle seeps out in a slow rivulet across my cheek. The slicing pain through me increases exponentially. Unbearably.

I’m not the only one tapped out on energy though. 

The dragon struggles to right itself, to bring its scythe-like claws underneath its hulking black body and get to its feet. There’s a small comfort in knowing I hurt it. In knowing that I hurt it more than it thought I could. In knowing that I hurt it enough that it’s reduced to the same weakness and frailty that I am.

Well, it isn't the same badass dragon that flew in here to stir up crap in the first place. At the very least, I did manage that.

The energy I’m summoning grows as the pain inside my body does. I only have to hold out a little longer. As soon as Channing is near enough, that’s when the wicked monstrosity will spew its dragonfire. I feel the truth of that knowledge the same way I recognized that Channing knew me. I remember it the same way I know the dragon and I have unfinished business.

With an agonized groan, I watch as the dragon twists. It gets one clawed foot underneath it, aligning its shoulders parallel to the ground. Then it lifts its serpentine neck, opening its toothy mouth wide. At the back of its throat, the green glow is too bright to look at anymore. Instead, I focus on Channing.

He falls to his knees beside me. “Jericho.” My name is a tormented cry and his beautiful blue eyes swim in tears. I’ve seen him look better than he does now, but even dust-coated and dirt-smudged, bleeding and beat up, he’s still a gorgeous hunk of a man. With one hand, he flips the Ducati off of me as if it weighs nothing. “Just hold on, babydoll,” he pleads. “The cavalry’s here.”

Wolfsong fades, replaced with nasty snarls and ferocious barks. Beyond Channing, the dragon gets its second foot beneath its shoulders and its tail thrashes. It draws breath, a natural bellows that fans its internal forge, driving the heat higher. The fiery green ball hurtles towards us a second after its twisting neck arches backwards to spit. At the exact same instant, I release the energy I’ve summoned.

A blue-white sphere closes around Channing and me just as the dragon’s fireball crashes against it. The bottom of one of my feet gets uncomfortably hot. I realize that’s because it’s too close to the edge of my protective sphere, but I don’t have the strength to move it.

Instinctively, Channing covers my injured form with his when the fireball hits. There’s no need. We’re already protected. The pain in my head is fading as rapidly as my vision is whiting out in a smooth cloud of unconsciousness. Through the thickening haze, I hear the dragon roar in pain. Something sounds like a missile whooshing past us.

“Stay with me! Jericho! Stay with me!”

It’s Channing’s ear-candy voice, but it seems so far away. In the last seconds, the whiteness around me grows cold. Then everything disappears, swallowed by black. 

**

Channing’s POV

“Ow! Jesus, Damien. What are you doing back there?”

We’re back at Avernus headquarters, sitting in Jericho’s hospital room. The monitoring machines beep and blip, steadily tracking her vitals and feeding the information onto a screen over her head. 

The weak sounds are like nails being driven into my heart. It’s been over a hundred years since I found her before the dragon. Now, she’s hurt, potentially dying. It’s all my fault, and it robs me of the one thing I’ve been searching for this entire lifetime.

I slouch backwards on the room’s rolling chair, my arms crossed over the padded chairback. 

A huge purple-black bruise darkens one side of Jericho’s pretty face from her temple to her chin. It’s where she struck the ground when the lightning’s percussive blast threw her. She's also got three cracked ribs and a bunch of lacerations from where the motorcycle landed on top of her. But the most concerning issue is the unconsciousness. God knows when I'll get her back if she's in a coma.

Behind me, Damien gives an exasperated sigh. “Suturing, duh. When did you become such a crybaby?”

“Are you using a bayonet to do it?” I snap as he jabs the suture needle into me again. “And don’t call me a crybaby or the next time you need stitches, I’ll treat you the same way you’re doing to me.”

Damien laughs, and a sharp pain shoots up my spine into my head as it jiggles the needle. He’s been working on this for a half hour and he’s only halfway up my back in closing the wound the dragon’s spiked tail opened.

“When have I ever needed stitches?”

"Don't push your luck. You might in about ten seconds," I threaten.

To my right, the heavy door swings inward, admitting Ferdi and a cool breeze from the outer hallway. On the bed, Jericho stirs, mumbling unconsciously. The words are barely coherent.

“Aren’t we going to the west?” Her normally sweet voice is strained and hisses across her vocal cords. It makes her cough weakly, then groan in pain.

“What’s she talking about?” Ferdi grumbles, jerking a thumb towards the unconscious woman on the bed. I can smell the remnants of explosives on him from when he fired Damien’s latest dragon-disabling  weapon.

“She’s hallucinating. And she’s in pain,” I explain then grunt as Damien jabs the needle into my flesh again. "Ow. Speaking of pain." The suture thread feels strange and uncomfortable as it pulls through my skin. “Will you check the intravenous drip line, please? Make sure she’s still getting the morphine.”

Ferdi’s icy blue eyes squint at the fluid feeding into Jericho through the IV tubing. “Yeah, it’s still running. You want her to have more?”

“No. Not until we hear back from the doctor about her lab work and the MRI.”

I watch as Ferdi backs away from the bedside. He crosses his arms over his chest, leaning against the wall to watch as Damien sews me up. There’s no mistaking the frustrated irritation I’m reading there.

“Let me guess,” I begin, rubbing my tired eyes with one hand. My eyelids grind across them as roughly as two-hundred grit sandpaper. “He got away.”

“He got away,” Ferdi confirms.

Behind me, Damien adds his two cents’ worth of opinion. I can already tell it's not going to be something I want to hear. “You hit him with the flame suppressant, right?”

“Of course I hit him!” Ferdi’s brows draw together in a homicidal frown he directs over me at Damien. I have to admit, the guy can be a burr in your blanket with his stupid-ass questions sometimes. “I never miss. It went right down his gullet.”

“Then we track him.”

“Yeah, about that,” Ferdi snarls. “Seems your shielded tracker wasn’t as shielded as you thought, pal.”

“There is no way that failed!” Damien bites out. “The body of that tracker was made of carbon-carbon composite! It’s the same material used in the cone portions of intercontinental ballistic missiles and re-entry space vehicles!”

“Yeah, well, maybe you need to make the whole thing out of that composite stuff because we got about thirty seconds after the fire retardant solution deployed. The dragon vomited purple-pink foam all over the place, then ramped the heat. He wasn't out of visual confirmation before your tracker burned up.” Shaking his head, Ferdi inhales deeply, then lets his breath out in a huff.

“Dammit, Damien! If you stab me like that again, I’m coming off this chair to clock you.” I give him a warning glare over my shoulder, then look at Ferdi again. “So did our thirty seconds get us any closer to the dragon’s human lair?”

“Nope. North of our location. That’s it.”

“Crap. That could be anywhere above the fortieth parallel.” I glance down at the ugly black flecked tile floor, brainstorming our next steps. Then I feel Damien’s fingers close on the top of my head and tip it to level position.

“You pull the two sides of the wound apart when you tip your head like that,” he tells me. “That’s why it hurts.”

“Yeah? I call bullshit, Damien. My head was level up until just then.” Still, I focus on Jericho’s sleeping face to comply. I really don’t need to antagonize the guy with the needle anyway.

As I contemplate Avernus’ strategy going forward, I run my tongue over my front teeth. There’s still a metallic tang of blood in my mouth from the injuries I sustained dealing with the dragon, and my gums are cut up and tender. I heave a sigh. “Alright. We did get thirty seconds out of the tracker. That's the best we've gotten so far. Damien, have your team study the readings. See if they can figure out why the heat shield failed. If you have to redesign it, do it.”

“Maybe a different flame retardant in the delivery missile’s explosive tip? Or a combination of more than one?” Ferdi suggests. “The tracker burned up because the dragon was able to recover enough heat fairly quickly. If we can suppress its fire longer, then we might get more life and a better location out of it.”

I nod. “Yeah, that’s good thinking.”

“You know what would be even better thinking?” Damien grumbles. “Figure out how he found Jericho.”

“Yeah. You can work on that too.”

Across from me, Ferdi grins smugly, a gratified glint in his ice-blue eyes. “By the way, the Ducati’s ruined, but your helmet survived.”

I flinch, squeezing my eyes shut. “Ooh. That hurts, Ferdi. That was a beautiful machine.”

“It was,” he agrees. “So stop destroying my tech.”

“If you hadn’t taken so long, then it would have been fine,” I retort.

“If you hadn’t taken off for parts unknown, then it wouldn’t have taken my team so long to deploy to your location,” Ferdi throws back. “Old man Adriani’s place is six blocks from Esteban’s. You were supposed to pick her up, pick up the food and go straight to his house. Your little joyride cost us the dragon.”

Damien’s suturing over my shoulder blade now and it hurts like a son of a gun. I grit my teeth against the pain, then reply to Ferdi. “I didn’t take it for a joyride. She did.” I nod towards the bed and Jericho’s unconscious frame.

“What do you mean ‘she did’?” Damien demands. Mercifully, this time he stops working on my injury to ask the question.

“She’s stronger than she’s ever been,” I reply. “She had a hold of the bike before she touched it.”

“She can do it now without touching it?” Stunned, Ferdi’s head swivels to stare at Jericho’s prone body laying in the bed.

“She can control stuff now without direct contact, yes,” I affirm. “Technology’s more advanced than it’s ever been. So is she.”

“How is that even possible?” Damien drops the needle and comes around so he can look me in the face. “She’s only twenty-one. Plus the foster homes she was in were the like the technological dark ages.”

I shrug my uninjured shoulder. “I don’t have that answer. Might not ever if she doesn’t come out of this. Are you done back there?” I thumb towards my back and Damien gets back to work. 

“At least this time she’s on our side,” Ferdi comments. “Jesus, that was a real b***h when she was working with the dragon last time. I thought we were finished then.”

“We were finished then. The only thing that saved us is that the dragon hates us more than he loves anything except himself. Including her.” I hear the snip of the scissors as Damien ties the last stitch. “If we can’t find him and take him out when he’s weak in his human form, then we’ll be doing this until he gets the upper hand again.”

“I’m going to hit you with the antibiotic spray,” Damien warns.

I cringe as the cold spray coats my exposed flesh, then lock my jaw as it begins to burn at the raw edge of the wound.

Across from me, Ferdi rubs the scruff of his five o’clock shadow. “What if we don’t have to find him in his human form?”

My lip curls up in offended confusion. “Did you get hit on the head in that row with the dragon, Ferdi?”

“No. Listen. Jericho hit him.”

“Yeah. So?”

“What ever she hit him with was enough to knock him out of the sky. And it didn’t just clock him a good one.” Ferdi shakes his bald, tattoo-covered head. “It hurt him. It was a real struggle to get back on his feet and take that last pot-shot at you two.”

“What are you saying?”

“Shut up for a sec, will you, Channing?” Damien comes around me, nodding. “This,” he shakes a finger at Ferdi, “this is good. We know his hide’s impervious to harm in his dragon form. But if Jericho was able to hurt him, then his insides are still fragile.”

“How do you propose we get to his insides?”

Damien looks at me like I’m an i***t. “The same way she did.”

“I’m pretty sure she struck him with a bolt of lightning. Where do you think we’re going to pull that kind of power from a second time?”

Jerking a finger towards Jericho in the bed, Damien replies, “She did it once.”

I swing my leg over the chair and get to my feet. “She’s almost dead because of it.”

“She still had juice left over afterwards to shield you from dragonfire. Damien,” Ferdi turns, “you have to have a thought on this.”

“I do. It’s brilliant.” The wheels are already turning inside Damien’s head.

“It’s not brilliant to kill my mate!”

Ferdi’s head swivels my direction, his ice blue eyes wide, but it takes Damien a few seconds longer to process what I’ve just said. 

“We’re not going to—wait. What?” Through his glasses, Damien’s eyes look like an owl’s. “Did—you just say Jericho is your mate?”

Inhaling deeply, I let the breath out in a long sigh and nod. “Yes.”

“When the hell did that happen?” Ferdi demands. “No, never mind. When did you think you were going to tell us?”

I stuff my hands into the back pockets of my jeans. My head hangs, not from shame or embarrassment, but from concern. “I’ve known since the first time I found her on that park bench.”

“Are you kidding!?” Now Damien’s mouth gapes. “Jesus, Chan! She was nine for crying out loud!”

“And I’m a hundred and thirty-two. What difference does it make?” I reply defensively. “Your mate is your mate. So I’ve known since she was nine. I knew Mia was my mate too, but the dragon got to her first. Except—.”

My voice trails off and I stare at Jericho’s unconscious helpless form. A sudden insight hits me. A whole new world of possibilities all bundled up inside a cute little package with glorious amber colored eyes and a fondness for a certain raggedly red hoodie and Converse All-Star sneakers.

“Except what, Chan?” Ferdi prompts.

“I think she knows too.” I jerk my chin towards Jericho in the bed.

“How could she know? She’s not a wolf.” Damien inhales sharply. “Oh hell no! Are you saying she’s a dragon!?”

“Seriously, Damien? I thought you were smart.” I cast a disgusted glare his direction. “She wouldn’t be a technomage if she was a dragon or a wolf. Those genetics only pass through human lineages.”

“Oh, right. Right. That’s why the dragon called her ‘Mia’ too.”

At least now Damien looks calmer. Ferdi, on the other hand, he peers at me through narrowed eyes.

“Care to explain how she can be Jericho and Mia at the same time, Alpha?” There’s a sharp edge to Ferdi’s voice. “Are they both in there? Or are you trying to tell me you forgot that Mia is dead? And if they’re both in there, then we have a bigger problem because Mia was mate to the dragon.”

“There’s not a ‘both’, Ferdi. They’re the same.” I search for words to try to explain. “And Mia didn’t choose the dragon as a mate. He stumbled on her and he took her captive. When she got to make a choice, she didn’t choose him.”

“That’s not a guarantee, Channing.”

“No, it’s not. I’m still telling you I think she knows. I think she knows all of what happened in that—body. Mia’s body.”

“How?”

“I think she never died.”

“Okay.” Damien drags out the syllables as he says it. “Might need to get more medical care than stitches for Channing.”

“Hear me out.” I try to organize my thoughts and present this in a cohesive fashion. “From the Old Lore, we knew the technomages show up once every six or eight generations. Wolves knew. Dragons knew. We knew because we live longer than six or eight human generations. But even we didn’t know what they were capable of until we advanced into the Industrial and Machine Ages. Right?”

“Right,” Damien agrees. “It’s basic history.”

“After that, it became obvious where the technomage was.”

“Right. Right.” Damien has definitely caught on now. “The Jet Age and the mechanical advances through flight. The Space Age and space exploration and flights.” Suddenly, his eyes go wide behind his spectacles. “And now we’re in the Information Age. Holy crap, Channing.”

Ferdi runs his tongue over his front teeth and clicks his tongue. “Not following, boys. Care to try again.”

“We ushered in the Information Age when we started using technology to manage data,” Damien explains. “We store it. We retrieve what we’ve stored. We transmit it. We manipulate and analyze it.”

“You mean computers.”

Damien and I both give Ferdi a wishy-washy nod.

“It started before that, but generally, yes,” Damien explains.

“But the key,” I can’t help but study the unconscious Jericho, “is storage. The technomages manipulate technology. If the technology allows for storage—”

“Oh! Oh!” Damien’s really excited now. He stares at Jericho too. “Or transmission! Holy crap! Jesus! We should have seen this coming!”

It seems impossible, but Ferdi’s eyes narrow even further. He peers at Damien and me through the merest slits. “Are you trying to tell me that Mia put her consciousness into the technology, then into another body?”

"That's exactly what I'm trying to tell you."