A Dragon at the Gate (The Chained Worlds Chronicles Book 2) Read online

I was distracted from my internal grumblings by the sound of screams from an alleyway we passed. I contemplated driving onward, but I thought about what Jeremy would do. I promptly ignored that. Then I thought about what Mei Ling would do. I threw that out too. It was when I was thinking about what Beth would do when I finally gave in. Apparently, I live with a bunch of nosey busy bodies and they would all have issues if I passed on panicked screams.

  I brought the vehicle to a rapid halt, that threw the human up against my back before he rebounded into his seat. He was still groaning in pain when I leaped off the bike and rushed into the alley. I was pretty sure he had recovered enough to shout curses at me as I left. The vampire simply sighed impatiently and tapped his foot. Naturally, he hadn’t been inconvenienced by the sudden stop.

  The alley turned into a short street that dead ended in what appeared to be a small shared plaza for the neighborhood residences. A shimmering opening, the size of a truck, blocked most of the exit and a large dinosaur was enjoying itself briskly chasing down the two humans desperately ducking behind overturned flyers and the several decent sized trees. As I maneuvered around the edge of the dimensional tear I tried to identify the creature more exactly. The beast was little smaller than the tyrannosaur I killed hiking my way back to the Primary portal in the park, only twelve feet tall. Perhaps an evolutionary offshoot. It looked like an allosaurus but I understood that was an entirely different time period. At least in this dimension.

  I finally managed to get around the portal without slipping into it and dashed toward the overgrown lizard. It was just about to bite down on one of the heftier examples of humanity it was playing with, but it must have noticed my movement out of the corner of its eyes. Swinging around its large head, it glared at me, before leaning forward to tear at me with its toothy maw.

  I wasn’t too worried. These creatures weren’t supernatural and that meant I was in another category of predator altogether. The energies of the world flowed through me, reinforcing my strength and durability. Not to mention this pipsqueak was less than half my size in my true form. I moved to the side, brought my doubled fists together down at an angle on its snout. Blood exploded from the destroyed skull as the force of my blow blew the skull backward, dragging the body of the beast along behind it. It landing twenty feet away plowing into the ground whereupon the body flipped over and the carcass came to a rolling stop.

  “Oh, my god! What happened? It was lunging at me and then it exploded backward,” the man said dazedly as he staggered towards me. “Did you shoot it?”

  I looked at him as I tried to brush bits of torn flesh and blood off my suit. Really? Did it look like I had a gun? Admittedly, I wouldn’t be covered in blood and shattered teeth if I had used one. “Yes. I shot him with my invisible rifle.”

  “How can we thank you!” This exclamation came from the woman approaching from the side. She had been slightly better at hiding and now the beast was dead had come out and was hugging the man.

  “No need to thank me,” I nobly declared as I stared at the deceased creature. “I know this has been traumatic for you folks. Let me take this thing away and I’ll be satisfied at having made the world a better place.” I absently spouted, as I salivated over the dinosaur. Oh yeah, steak tonight.

  I ignored the babble of the couple as I walked over to the carcass and grabbed the tail. This would be a little tricky to get traction on. Carefully leaning into the weight, I began to drag the body behind me. The weight itself was trivial but my feet kept slipping until I concentrated on bringing more of my mass into my form. The rune that fixed me into a humanoid form ached and burned as I pushed my crippled shapeshifting to the limit. My form didn’t change but the impression I left on the world did and my steps became heavier and slipped less.

  The couple quieted and huddled away as I dragged the corpse away. I guess they were squeamish. More for me!

  Back at the rickshaw, the vampire was still tapping his foot. I had heard a steady stream of obscenities from Hardy but that died down as I came around the corner. His face took on a grayish cast as I approached. Humans are really silly around dead things. Funny, considering how violent they were.

  While he was catching flies and the vampire the very picture of impatience, I dug around the rear utility box behind the carriage. As I came up with generous coils of straps, I promised myself to give Beth a raise. I felt a little disloyal in thinking it but in some ways, she was a way better assistant than her brother. I went about tying the straps around the carcass and fastening it the frame of the bike. It should hold, I did ask Beth to get the strongest available.

  When I got back on the rickshaw and started pedaling, I realized the flaw in my plan. The bike was certainly sturdy enough but the wheels simply spun in place. The vampire snorted at my predicament and I spared him a brief glare. There was no way in hell I was abandoning this feast on the roadside.

  I sighed as I realized the only way I was going to get this home was to use pure psychic brute force. With a frown, I concentrated and I encompassed the corpse in a telekinetic grip. I didn’t want to waste my energy so I pushed more strength into my power until I barely countered the sheer mass and the bike’s wheels regained traction.

  It was with renewed exuberance I pedaled forth. I may be constantly distracted from more important things and my time wasted by renegades from a black and white comedy skit but at the end of this day, I was going have a barbecue.

  The last time I was at Mountain High was at night. The buildings looked more mundane and the cracks in the windows and the flat out missing panes lent a certain war torn look to a previously very exclusive neighborhood. Even now, smoking construction buoys waivers drunkenly in the air looking like they were about to come crashing down onto the people below.

  That was another difference. The people. Previously there were scattered well-dressed elite and a security bot at every corner. The security bots were long gone and the people in the streets far more numerous. They were also a lot less well dressed. I would venture to say that many of them looked like refugees from a night club after an all-night bender. The clothes themselves were excellent quality but it was obvious that they hadn’t been washed in days, smudged with dirt and grime and often torn. I suppose the laundry service after the city had been subjected to power outages, massive lightning storms, and dinosaur rampages was somewhat lacking.

  With only military vehicles patrolling the air, most people were getting from place to place on ancient bicycles and a surprising number of well cared antique land vehicles I am sure were never intended to be seen outside some very rich people's garage. Still, necessity will always triumph and here they were. The people and what traffic there was, were remarkably accommodating in getting out of the way despite the very sparse coverage of functioning traffic buoys. There were many glances at the large corpse we were dragging and many whispers as we passed. I politely nodded and smiled at them in sympathy. They were obviously jealous of the delicious meal I had with me.

  Even with the traffic being so cooperative, I still had to slow as I approached the entrance to Mountain High. Wheeled vehicles and people just couldn’t move that fast. Hopefully, the traffic buoys would be fixed soon, the entire mob of people in the middle of the street was very chaotic and the constant honking was getting on my nerves.

  I pulled up to the front and got off, unhappily brushing the dried gore from my suit. It was tweed. I think Jeremy was making a joke when he stocked them, but it had been remarkably comfortable. I had more at home but since dry cleaning wasn’t the world’s main concern I had to assume it would be a while before I would be able to get the shredded flesh out of the fabric. There was a spell that cleaned things with a wave of the hand. It was supposedly a stupidly simple spell. Ingrained so deeply into the firmament that apprentices used it with impunity. Definitely my first priority.

  “Watch the vehicle Laurel,” I said to the thin undead as he looked at me down his long nose in disdain. “Guard the dino too.”

&nbs
p; “Why would I care if someone took off with the carcass,” he asked sarcastically.

  “If I lose my barbecue, you’ll have to explain to the lovely Vivian why we were delayed hunting down a replacement.”

  “Fine.”

  “If you’ll come this way Professor I’ll take you to Mister Prince,” Hardy politely offered as he staggered out of the cart. He wobbled a little as if his legs were partially asleep. Strange, he was significantly more congenial since I brought the dinosaur back.

  “Just Derek...” I trailed off in the middle of my protest. “Fine. Professor, it is.” I gave up. I sucked at the whole undercover thing anyway and the end of the world made the point rather moot. They can call me whatever they wanted to.

  Then I went in to meet the Prince of the underworld.

  The “Prince” wasn’t that impressive. He was a middle-aged plump man with thinning hair. Considering all of this could be fixed with a pill you had to wonder if his insanity was actually completely cured. Even when I had shape changed into him to steal him blind, I thought his form was a tad creepy.

  So there I was, sitting in his office, surrounded by his bookcases and luxurious carpets. Eddie sat at his huge desk and I was in a very comfortable chair in front of him. The chair was new. I had smashed the old one in a fit of rage during our last meeting. The carpet was not quite as smooth as previously and I could tell it covered a large crack in the floor that went all the way across the room and up the wall. There were no windows in the room but from looking at the outside of the building, this floor had been hit pretty hard. Most of the windows were gone or half melted from ley line energy strikes.

  “So we meet again,” I nodded with a neutral expression on my face, my fingertips forming a triangle. “How are things going?”

  “We survived,” he paused. “Most of us.”

  “Your welcome.”

  “What?” he asked, distracted for a moment. “Never mind. I called you here to collect on one of your favors.”

  “I was hoping for some tea,” I feigned disappointment. “And maybe a steak. It’s getting hard to get the bare necessities.”

  “Well it’s only going to get worse,” Eddie said with some disgust. “The military helped initially, but now that we don’t have constant lightning storms I heard they plan to use this city as a base to help organize the aid to the rest of the world.”

  “Your welcome.” He continued his monolog, completely ignoring me.

  “Ironically, this is going to mean that all their resources are going to be outside this city except to re-supply. We’re going to have to deal with the monster jack in the boxes ourselves.”

  “True. The good side of that is they are delicious.”

  He stared at me for a moment in silence. “I sometimes forget you aren’t human. Then you do something like that and it’s in your face. Fine. Your bad ass. You’re the monster that eats other monsters for snacks. You and the other shape changing freaks can be useful and eat the ones that don’t know their place.”

  “Right. I had almost forgotten why I didn’t like you.” I was lying. I hadn’t forgotten.

  “You don’t need to like me. We had an agreement. Seven wishes.”

  “Favors,” I chuckled. “I am not a genie. I can’t just wave my hand and have reality bend to my whims. But we do have an agreement. What do you need.”

  “I need you to resurrect some people,” he stated. I stared at him for a moment.

  “Can you wait a couple of weeks,” I asked. “I am still working on that.”

  By the widening of his eyes, I could see he was surprised. Ah, I see. He was opening with something he ‘knew’ was impossible so when I denied him he would have an advantage.

  “You can raise the dead,” he stated flatly. Yeah, he was fishing now.

  “Right now I can only do it to the very recently dead.” Both my psionic healing and circle were more than adequate for such a purpose. “I have been researching more powerful methods. Given a few weeks of ‘uninterrupted’ time, I think I can do it without that limitation.”

  “Hmm,” he was silent. I could see plans form behind his eyes. “So as of this moment, you cannot do what I ask.”

  I looked at him in annoyance. “I told you before I don’t do wishes. If I can do something I will. If you want something I can’t do, go somewhere else.”

  “When you say you can resuscitate the recently dead, so this include the brain damaged?”

  “Ah, you mean the ones that are illegal to revive, by law. I have a couple of methods that can do that, as long as their spirit hasn’t left their body.”

  “Like their soul?”

  “No, not...” I paused. I really didn’t want to get into a semantics argument with Eddie. “Okay, let’s go with ‘soul’. If their soul hasn’t left their body, I can repair the damage one way or another. Otherwise, we need a better method.”

  “A lot of people are in limbo due to the recent disaster. Technically dead. The military apparently has a god awful number of cryogenic pods and has placed almost all of the people that have recoverable remains in stasis.” He snorted, “They promised that once services have been restored, doctors will examine the victims and those that meet the legal criteria for recovery will be revived.”

  “And I assume you have some pals that may not meet this definition.”

  “Some of my people were technically killed during the events. We have our own stasis pods. Significantly better than the military’s mothballed versions.”

  “You don’t want to wait?”

  “That and also some of the people may be wanted for questioning. Others may not meet the letter of the law due to some head trauma. I want them back. I don’t give a damn if some bureaucrat thinks they know better.”

  “Fair enough,” I nodded. I actually thought the laws regarding reviving brain damaged people or making copies of memories and then restoring them to healed bodies or even new clones, were a bit excessive.

  Nodding, he got up and lead me out the back of the office, through several corridors to a storage room. I tried to reign in my aura. I doubted it would be appreciated if I blew out the support equipment for the fourteen people I was supposed to be reviving.

  There before me were fifteen capsules. All lined up like coffins ready for burial. Coffins with a transparent faceplate.

  “So you want me to heal seven of them,” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “This would be a single favor,” he said firmly, staring me steadily in the eyes. “I would expect six more services in the future.”

  I stared at the pods and then back at Eddie. The definition of ‘service’ wasn’t really defined. As annoying as this was, it wouldn’t take me too long. In the end, I decided it simply wasn’t worth arguing over and nodded.

  “Doing this surrounded by stasis technology is asking for trouble. Take me to a separate room and bring them in one at a time. I’ll see what I can do. Assuming they aren’t truly dead, I can either heal them here or back at my home.”

  “What you do disrupts technology? Like what happened to all the quantum level tech?” I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised people noticed the common theme of the most advanced technology dying with the coming of the portals.

  “Yeah, I should be able to keep most of it in check, especially if I am reviving them anyway. However, let’s not tempt fate.” I didn’t feel like getting into an explanation of my aura as a supernatural creature disrupting technology versus my psionics, which happily worked with conventional physics.

  It turned out that eleven of the recently dead could be repaired enough that no mental damage was detectable through simple psychic surgery. Yes, massaging their brain through their skull with my healing fingers worked. Three were far enough gone that my psychic talents couldn’t recover their personality or memories. I told Eddie to bring them in a shielded truck to my home. The circle that mostly resurrected Matt should be able to do something simple as regenerate the brain as good as new. That type of healing magic
could coax the recorded templates of people from the firmament.

  The last body in stasis was so far gone it would have to wait for the more advanced circle. There was nothing I could do for it at the moment. I could tell Eddie wasn’t happy, but frankly, it was more than anyone else could do. Legally, that is. Someday my upgraded circle would be able to wrest the entire template from the primal layer of reality and stuff it back in the body. If that wasn’t resurrection, I am not sure what else, short of a god, would do it.

  Chapter 4

  The trip to Tower Plaza was quieter, though not as amusing as listening to the slapstick comedy duo bicker. I was also developing an ache in the back of my head from the constant strain of levitating the corpse. Physically, I could stay active for weeks before I had to rest. With the energy now pouring through the ley lines I could probably push it almost indefinitely, though the risk of accidentally sleeping for a few months got larger the more I did so.

  So why did I do it? Sure the idea of a feast was tempting, but was it really worth it? Since the fight with the demon lord and the rending of the dimensions, I had been feeling something I thought lost. Confidence. Perhaps bordering on arrogance. I was feeling normal.

  The caution and hesitance that had characterized my mindset for the last year, since I had been bound with runes and thrown into this world, were going away. To be honest, although it felt damn good, it may not be the best thing. Dragons of all ages are known for their arrogance. It’s a defining feature. Usually, it’s not really an issue since we generally are almost as good as we think we are. We are the tanks of the supernatural world. You have to go up to demon lord or godhood to outclass us. Or at least that’s what we believe.

  Mr. Evil, the ancient dragon that had done this to me, had forced a very decent lesson of humility upon me. Cast out into a low energy world and at a fraction of my usual strength, I was far more cautious than was natural for me. The encounters with Faramond, Mei, and her sword and then Sebastian with his own runic dagger had kept me somewhat humble. I frowned as I pedaled through the streets, the afternoon shadows lengthening into the evening. Now that I thought of it, those items would scale up with the ambient energy just like I did and most spell effects. Would a mystically empowered human such as Faramond scale? Probably.