Top Gun Tiger (Protection, Inc 7)

Shane gave a tiny jerk of his chin in Lamorat’s direction.

A gray blur dropped from the ceiling. The wizard let out a very undignified shriek as Shane’s gray moth kitten wrapped itself around his head with all four legs, like the face-hugger in Alien.

“Go!” Catalina yelled. Her butterfly kitten flew to Lamorat, landed square in the middle of his chest, and began to enthusiastically shred his coat and everything underneath.

At the same moment, Nick let go of his little dragon and Justin released his Cerberus puppy. The next thing the beleaguered wizard knew, two puppy jaws were biting his left ankle and one was biting his right, and his pants were on fire at the crotch.

With a howl of pain and anguish, the wizard shifted.

Like a dragon, he didn’t shift instantaneously. When dragons transform, the air around them begins to sparkle until they vanish within the glow; when the sparks wink out, the new form appears in the place of the old. So Destiny knew what was happening when the air around Lamorat began to thicken and seethe with flashes of light.

She tried to help Ethan to his feet, and found that she could do it, but didn’t need to; he stood up easily, put his arm around her, and pulled her away. The spell that had held the humans in place seemed to have broken entirely; everyone was backing away from the wizard, watching him warily. The pets too were sensibly flitting or zooming or darting or bolting back to their owners.

Destiny had no idea how dangerous the wizard’s shift form might be, what it might be, or even how big it could be. She was uneasily conscious of the size of the room, and particularly of its unnecessarily high ceiling. And also that the wizard-cloud was blocking all the exits. They were very likely about to be trapped in a room with something very, very large.

“Carter! Can you get their collars off?” Justin indicated Roland and Ransom.

Carter examined the collars, then opened his coat. Destiny was boggled to see that the interior of the expensive designer overcoat had been altered to include a high-tech mini tool belt. “Yeah. Just keep whatever that thing is off me while I do.”

“Got it,” said Justin. “I thought you were staying in the plane. Thanks for coming to the rescue.”

Carter made a brushing-off motion with one hand while running something like a Star Trek tricorder over Ransom’s collar. “You’re welcome. Don’t expect it to ever happen again.”

The rest of them formed a protective circle around Carter, Ransom, and Roland. The lightning cloud around the wizard was becoming more and more active, and getting bigger and bigger, pierced with flashes of green, blue, red, white, and even black light.

The cloud vanished, leaving them staring up at a gigantic, five-headed monster.

At first Destiny couldn’t even comprehend what it was. The heads resembled those of dragons, but they were attached to long, sinuous, snake-like necks. And the necks were attached to a stumpy body with four squat legs, all of it covered in extremely tough-looking plate armor. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the heads were circled by octopus-like tentacles, some long and thin, some short and fat, but all covered with suckers and dripping slime.

The necks writhed, the tentacles writhed harder, and the heads made experimental-looking darts in and out. Destiny was relieved to see that they couldn’t reach anyone… yet.

“Not half as cute as you,” Justin muttered, patting his Cerberus pup. All three h

eads let out nervous whines as they stared up at the monster.

All five heads suddenly reared back. Instinctively, everyone dove aside. Destiny and Ethan clutched each other as they tucked and rolled. A wave of heat passed over her head, she heard a roar and crackle and hiss and clatter and splash, and she smelt a revolting combination of sudden stinks.

As they slammed into a set of empty cages, she looked up just in time to see the scarlet dragon head breathing out a burst of flame, the white head spraying a barrage of icicles, the green head spitting green slime that melted the walls and floor where it hit, the blue head shooting a bolt of crackling lightning, and the black head emitting a cloud of toxic-looking smoke.

“Fuckin’ A,” muttered Nick. “Seriously?”

Destiny was immensely relieved to see that no one had been badly hurt, though Roland was slapping out a fire on the sleeve of Carter’s coat and Shane, plucking a needle-sharp icicle from Catalina’s shoulder, had murder in his eyes. All the pets had flown or scampered free, as far as she could tell. She had a moment of alarm when she couldn’t spot Shane’s kitten, then decided that like its master, it preferred to lurk unseen.

“Convenient that they’re color-coded,” Merlin remarked.

“Just like a dungeon crawl,” said Ethan encouragingly. “We’ve got this, nerd girl.”

Destiny tapped her ear, then her mouth: It can hear us. Don’t plan aloud.

Ethan nodded, then glanced around speculatively. They were on the same side of the room as Justin and Nick. Carter, Ransom, Roland, Shane, Merlin, and Catalina were on the other side. Destiny’s eyes met Ethan’s, and she knew that they were thinking the same thing. They just needed to find a way to explain it to the people they couldn’t whisper to…

Then she knew how to signal at least one of them. And once he knew his job, hopefully the rest would follow.

As the dragon-thing ponderously swiveled its heads for another try, Ethan gathered her, Justin, and Nick into a tight huddle, and breathed, “The others will distract. I’ll take black. Nick, green. Justin, blue. Destiny, white. Whoever finishes first takes red.”

As the dragon heads reared back to attack again, Destiny yelled, “CHICKEN TIME!”

Merlin became a chicken-sized raptor and rushed the dragon-thing, leaping up and down and screeching. Destiny and the others nearest to her transformed and leaped for their targets. The monster swung its nearest head (the white one) toward Merlin, but before it could cut him to pieces with slivers of ice, Destiny was upon him.