This was his duel.
Cang came at Rigo again. Sweep, strike. Swoop, dive. Rigo fought to get at least one claw into the dragon, as the dragon fought to get his long, snapping body around Rigo.
It was a lethal dance of attack and evasion. Rigo had to concentrate everything he had on the fight, leaving Jen to handle Cang’s reinforcements. He kept his hot gaze on the dragon. It would take only an instant.
But the dragon’s head lashed back and forth, avoiding Rigo’s gaze. Rigo fought on, sensing an internal pressure building in his head at the effort to sustain his laser vision. His fights had never lasted this long—basilisks were strongest at quick strikes. He was vaguely aware that the battle had taken them over the land again, though he’d meant to keep them far out to sea.
What now? His head panged sharply. The dragon was trying to get at his thoughts, or someone was, at his command.
Rigo snapped at the dragon, ripping claws under his belly as Cang twisted away. No. Keep the red dragon from flying over land, which would endanger living beings below . . . among them his—
And the home instinct reached for his mate—
MATE, Cang’s thought battered Rigo’s mind. AH, THERE.
Chapter 19
GODIVA
A block away from the bakery, Godiva saw a couple of running figures. Had they come from the bakery? She peered in the direction where they were heading, and a flicker overhead caught her attention.
She looked up, and cold horror surged through her.
A silvery-gold basilisk with elegant overlapping armor plating fought against a blood red eel-shaped dragon that was at least four times the basilisk’s length.
“Rigo,” Godiva whispered, and began to walk faster, ignoring the twinge in her hip, and the echoing twinge in her knee.
Well, Godiva, what can you do against that thing? was her exasperated thought. She had no answer, except the utter conviction that she had to be there. She was not going to stand by while the man she had regained, after so many years of silence and misunderstanding, was taken away again.
As she rounded a corner, she caught sight of two more people zombie-shuffling toward the end of the street, which abutted onto the palisades above the shoreline. And when she reached the guardrail that kept cars from driving onto the rocky expanse, she saw another pair, and another, mumbling along from other streets dead-ending against the shoreline. And not far away, the yellow tape and traffic cones marking off the palisade over the Oracle Stone site. Everybody was heading there.
Before she stepped over the low guardrail, she glanced back at the street. People were busy walking along, driving, talking, texting, but nobody seemed to be aware of the battle between two mythic creatures overhead.
So the mate bond made mythic shifters visible. What to do now?
She stepped over the guardrail, and with no buildings blocking her view, she saw a brilliant golden shape arrowing low across the beach, driving away a flock of various birds. Some of them very big. Hadn’t she seen that golden bird with the long tail feathers—Jen!
“That wasn’t in the plan,” Godiva muttered.
Which meant one thing. The plan had gone sideways.
She was forced to slow over the uneven ground, corrugated by wind, weather, and the occasional quake. Her knee twanged at every step, but she ignored it, and pulled out her phone to punch Doris’s number again.
This time Doris didn’t answer.
“Something’s definitely gone south,” Godiva whispered under her breath, just as she got close enough to recognize Joey Hu among those converging on the police taped area. Already most of the traffic cones had been kicked down, the useless yellow tape fluttering in the breeze as muscular guys formed up menacingly. Godiva saw her spritz target elbow through the crowd. The Cang gang was rallying.
But so were Joey’s people. Several of them ran about with dog whistles, blowing until they were purple-faced as they turned the shamblers into a crowd of bewildered, annoyed people adding to the confusion.
A gap in the crowd revealed Mikhail, who had a cane with him. His face looked strained even at this distance, sort of a grayish pale, but he stood up straight, grasped his cane—and drew a sword from it with a metallic zing! Nikos emerged from behind a clump of people and took up a martial arts stance.
The forming Cang gang faded back a couple steps.
“No super strength?” Godiva gloated, as Mattie’s target appeared among the Cang team. She kicked someone from the back, sending the guy sprawling. The woman spat her cigarette onto the ground as she joined Red, and began screaming at the Cang people, urging them with violent gestures to attack Joey and Mikhail.
The closest Godiva had ever gotten to gang fights was watching West Side Story on stage, but it really looked like there was going to be a nasty one here. Everyone seemed to be yelling at everyone else to go first, or lead the way, toward Joey, Nikos, and Mikhail at the front of their group. But a lot of the Cang gang seemed to be wary of the three men, and others watched Jen flying low, back and forth, above the breakers.
Godiva forced her attention away. She would be no help to anyone there. Any of those Cang people, even denied the charm that gave them super strength, could squish her like a bug without half trying. They were much taller than her, and probably twice her weight.