At the same instant as she heard the roar, she felt the pain. The dark power crackled through her like a whiplash and tore her own involuntary scream from her. It was worse than the first time she'd felt it, ten times worse, maybe more. The dragon was much stronger.
And it followed her.
Like a real whip, it flashed across the clearing after her. It hit her again as she hit the ground, and Keller screamed again.
It hurt.
She tried to scrabble away, but the pain made her weak, and she fell over on her side. And then the black energy hit her right shoulder-exactly where it had hit the first time in the mall.
Keller saw white light.
And then she was falling in darkness.
Her last thought was, I didn't get it. I couldn't have. It still has power.
Diana, I'm sorry...
She stopped feeling anything.
She opened her eyes slowly.
Hurts...
She was looking up at the dragon.
It had dropped Iliana; Keller couldn't see where. And it was staring down at her in malevolent fury, obviously waiting for her to wake up so she could feel it when it killed her.
When he killed her. He'd taken on the shape he'd been wearing in the beginning. A young man with clean, handsome features and a nicely muscled if compact body. Black hair that shed rainbow colors under the moonlight and looked as fine and soft as her own fur. And those obsidian eyes.
It was hard to look away from those eyes. They seemed to capture her gaze and suck her in. They were so much more like stones than eyes, silver-black, shiny stones that seemed to reflect all light out again.
But when she managed to drag her gaze upward, she felt a thrill of hope. His forehead was a bleeding ruin.
She had gotten him. Her slash had carved a nice hamburger-sized piece out of his scalp. Somewhere on the ground in the clearing were two little stubby horns.
But only two; there were three left on his head. He must have turned at the last instant. Keller would have cursed if she had a human throat.
"How're you feeling?" the dragon said, and leered at her form under the gory mess of his scalp.
Keller tried to snarl at him and realized that she did have a human throat. She must have collapsed back into her half-and-half form, and she was too weak to change back again.
"Having trouble?" the dragon asked.
Keller croaked, "You should never have come back."
"Wrong," the dragon said. "I like the modern world."
"You should have stayed asleep. Who woke you up?" She was buying time, of course, to try and regain some strength. But she also truly wanted to know.
The dragon laughed. "Someone," he said. "Someone you'll never know. A witch who isn't a witch. We made our own alliance."
Keller didn't understand, and her brain was too fuzzy to deal with it. But just at that moment, she noticed something else.
Movement behind the dragon. The figures that had been lying on the ground were stirring. And they were doing it stealthily, in ways that showed they were awake and with their wits about them.
They were alive. She could see Galen's head lift, with moonlight shining on his hair as he looked at her. She could see Winnie turn toward Iliana and
begin to crawl. She could see Nissa's shoulders hump and then fall back.
Later, when they were asked, they would all say the same thing had brought them to awareness: a deep rumbling sound that vibrated in their bones. The dragon's roar.
Or, at least, three of them would say that. Galen would always say that all he heard was Keller's scream and his eyes came open.
The surge of hope she felt made Keller's heart beat hard and wiped away the pain-for the moment, at least. But she was terrified of giving the dragon some clue.
She didn't dare look at Galen any longer. She stared at the dragon's black stone eyes and thought with all her strength, Get away.
Get away, take the Jeep, take Diana. He may not be able to follow you. Run.
"Your time's over," she told the dragon out loud. "The shapeshifters don't want you anymore. Everything has changed."
"And it's changing again," the dragon said. "The end of the world is coming, and the beginning of a new one. It's time for everything that's sleeping to wake back up again."
Keller had a horrified vision of hundreds of dragons being dug up and brought back to life. But there was something going on in the clearing that was even more horrifying to her.
Galen wasn't getting away. He was slithering on his stomach toward her.
And Winnie, the idiot, was beside Diana nowbut
she wasn't dragging her to the Jeep. She seemed to be whispering to her.
Keller felt a hot wave of utter desperation.
What can I do?
If the dragon sees them, they're all dead. There's nothing any of them can do against him. Galen's not a warrior-he can't change. Nissa looks too hurt to move. Winnie's orange fire won't even singe the dragon. And Diana will get swatted like a butterfly.
They can't do anything. I have to.
She was so tired and hurt, and her claws were much less lethal than in her full panther form. But she had to do it, and she had to do it now.
"Go back where you came from!" she shouted. She bunched her muscles and jumped.
Right for him. Straight on. That was what took him by surprise, the sheer insanity of the attack. He threw the black energy at her, but he couldn't stop her leap.
Her claws ripped into his forehead again, and then she fell back.
The dragon's scream split the heavens. Dizzy with pain and shock, Keller stared at him, hoping desperately...
But she'd taken only one horn off. He still had two.
He thrashed around in wounded fury, then threw the dark power at her again. Keller shuddered and lost her balance. She crashed to the ground and lay there, limp.
"Keller!" The scream was full of such raw anguish
that it hurt Keller's throat to hear it. It made her heart throb hard and then fall in sick dismay. Galen, no, she thought. Don't bother with me. You have to get Iliana away.
"Keller!" he screamed again, and then he was beside her, holding her.
"No . ? ." she whispered.
She couldn't say more than that. She looked at him pleadingly with the eyes of a dumb beast. If he died, too, it would make her own death meaningless.
The dragon was still screaming, both hands to his forehead. He seemed to be too angry to attack. "Keller, hang on. Please, you have to hang on." Galen was dripping tears on her face.