#shadowhunter peril

Stonehenge was a sacred place to the Fey. They often spoke of a “Guardian” and none of them approached the area. That’s why Wiltshire was so devoid of anything nonhuman—everyone who knew of the Fey, knew that as immortal beings half-angel and half-demon, they feared little. And what they did fear was not something to be trifled with.

But Etzel was never one for taking other people for their word, and he was blessed (or cursed) with an extraordinarily intense curiosity of anything that could prove to be dangerous.

So, here he stood, examining one of the perimeter stones with vague interest. There were a series of glyphs running along the outer edge, black and jagged. They didn’t make either of rings on Etzel’s middle fingers twitch, however, so they were neither Nephilim nor demonic symbols.

“Interesting,” he cooed, running a bare hand along the cold surface.

If his knowledge proved correct (and it usually did, for Etzel never did anything halfway, and this included gaining intellect), then these runes, while definitely not human, were made by mortal hands. The marks couldn’t be seen by mundane eyes, but someone mundane had crafted them. A mundane gifted with the Sight, perhaps?

He pursed his lips, and racked his brains for any of the ancient language he knew of. None of them fit, geographically or legibly. The area wasn’t right for the runes to be Latin, or Ancient Greek, or Sanskrit. None of the demonic or angelic runes matched either.

Abruptly, Etzel’s eye was drawn to one symbol in particular. It was an image of a sun, with a line drawn through the middle. A bisected star, the symbol of eternity in the phoenix language. Kyle had been tutoring him in it.

Etzel whipped out his cell phone, grimacing at the device. Veronica had bought it for him so he could keep in touch whenever he and Kyle went back to Ka’a. She told him it was a simple, easy-to-use one, but modern technology had never been Etzel’s forte. Still, he learned how to use it relatively quickly—but he only ever brought the thing out when it was an emergency. Dialing Kyle’s number, he pressed the talk button.

It rang twice, and Kyle picked it up. “Etzel?”

“Hello, dearie! I have a question for you.”

“Shoot.” Kyle sounded tired. What was the time there over in New York?

Oops.

“I think I’ve come across one of your adorable phoenix runes, and I don’t know the translation of it all. Can you help?”

“Send me a picture.”

“Er--” He fidgeted. “I’m afraid I never learned that bit, primrose.”

Kyle sighed impatiently, and Etzel could picture him shaking his head, rolling his eyes. “Describe it then.”

“Well, this one row I’m looking at has two teeth crossed over each other, then a circlet of feathers, a bisected sun, and a glowing orb.”

“The orb means ‘bound’,” Kyle replied instantly, working backwards. “The sun means eternity. And the feathers mean magic by blood. The teeth mean dragon. Where are you?” he sounded worried.

“There’s an inscription below it. I can read this one. ‘Bahamut’. What’s a Bahamut, dearie?”

“A certain type of dragon, there’s only one,” Kyle snapped. “It’s big, nasty, and usually guards stuff. But all the dragons are extinct now.”

Etzel touched the dragon marking. “The dragons are extinct, you say?”

“Yes, they died out a while ago in a war with Ra’s grandfather. Where are you?” Kyle asked again, more urgently this time.

“Dragon, sealed by magic, eternally bound,” Etzel whispered, ignoring Kyle yet again.

“Etzel! Don’t touch the markings!”

He drew away his hand. “Whatever for?”

“You’ve drunk my blood! That means whatever blood magic the phoenixes before have done, you can manipulate!”

“Oh dear.”

The ground started shaking.

“Etzel--”

“So sorry, chickadee, but I have to go for now.” He snapped the phone shut and backed up quickly from the stones, as the ground split open. A glowing ball of white light shot from beneath the surface in the center of Stonehenge, and disappeared into the sky, twinkling.

Etzel blinked. “Well.” What now? “That was…”

Then the orb plummeted back down, growing larger and larger. The air rippled and contorted around it as if in a spatial rift, and then took the form of a massive gray dragon, about the size of a two-story house. The skin around its head was gray, rough, and large, dark red eyes glared from under the horns curling about its head, growing backwards to point behind it. The rest of its body was black and red with wickedly curved, golden talons. A mouth full of long sharp teeth, disproportionately miniature next to the size of its head, snapped viciously. Its wings were triple-jointed, and had a very large wingspan.

It roared, making Etzel cover his ears.

“Oh dear,” he said, raising his hands up slowly and taking a step forward. “Bahamut--”

The dragon roared again, and this time it swiped at Etzel, narrowly missing the vampire with its claws.

Etzel’s eyes narrowed.

“Dearie,” he addressed the beast. “Dearie, I don’t want to fight you—” A hand moved to his pocket. “—but I didn’t come all the way here to become a snack!” A metal pole slid into his palm.

Bahamut, apparently, didn't care for Etzel’s opinion on the matter. It lunged.

With a flick of the wrist, Etzel brandished the pole. A tiny square piece of metal popped out, then unfolded itself into a sword blade as a crossguard unfolded simultaneously. He swung the blade to meet with Bahamut’s hard, stony face as it attempted to bite him. Sparks flew at the blade’s contact, and it refused to do any harm to the dragon, but Etzel’s strength was enough to force it into a standstill.

Etzel quickly swung again, and this time Bahamut flinched backwards. It’s wings unfurled, and it rocketed into the air, looped once, then dove towards Etzel.

Etzel took a stance with his left foot forward, pointing the sword with his right hand behind him. There was a click, and the blade split apart, cleaving a two-inch gap between the metal. Blue electricity crackled in between the two prongs, and Etzel spun once, twice, three times. Each time he came around, he swung the blade up into the air.

With a bang, three bolts of the lightning shot towards Bahamut, exploding into a cloud of black smoke as they impacted. Etzel was already on the move, using his immortal strength to jump up to Bahamut’s height and attack the beast’s head again, but to no avail. Then, the beast grabbed Etzel’s sword with its teeth.

“Peaches, I have no quarrel with you—” Etzel tried to protest, but when Bahamut’s mouth began to glow blue, he cursed and yanked his weapon out of its maw. Then Etzel let go of his grip on Bahamut’s snout, and freefell to the ground as the great dragon breathed a stream of blue energy, neither fire nor electricity, but something in between.

He tucked his legs in and rolled once, tumbling onto the ground unharmed. Before Etzel could do anything else, Bahamut slammed into the earth behind him. Reacting instinctively, Etzel whirled around and let loose another blast from his sword, catching the monster’s face point-blank and making it stumble backwards.

Etzel took opportunity of its momentary disorientation, and sprinted underneath the beast, searching for a weak point on its underbelly.

Unfortunately, he found none.

Double unfortunately, Bahamut’s tail curled under its body and knocked Etzel away. He skipped across the grass twice before crumpling to the ground.

Wheezing against a broken rib (Bahamut was strong indeed), Etzel scrambled to his feet and dodged a another hit from Bahamut’s tail, which pulverized the ground he’d been kneeling on a moment earlier.

“Right,” Etzel grumbled, and he sped towards the dragon, flitting in a zig-zag formation to avoid being tracked, and jumped up, slashing his weapon.

Bahamut’s left eye exploded in a pulpy mess, and the creature howled in pain. Etzel landed lightly and hopped backwards, out of range.

Bahamut lunged wildly, missing Etzel by a mile. Half-blinded, it stumbled around, screaming, before extending its wings again and taking to the skies. Then he began to breathe flames again, scorching the landscape.

As long as it has its wings, blinding it won’t matter, you daft dunderhead, Etzel berated himself silently. It can just burn the whole area until it reaches me.

The smart thing to do would have been to run. But Etzel never ran from a fight, even if sticking around wasn’t the smartest thing to do.

Then, Bahamut gave another earsplitting roar. This one was filled with more anger than pain now, and before Etzel could react something tackled him, bringing the vampire up into the air.

Who knew Bahamut could summon helpers?

This dragon was a strange bioorganic creature, a bit bigger than an SUV. It was purple and black, with glowing pink eyes and six light blue, membranous wings. Red claws, just as large and curved as Bahamut’s, flexed eagerly.

Etzel nearly cursed again as the dragon began to roll, attempting to throw him off and turn him into a grease spot on the ground.

“No you don’t!” he cried, stabbing his sword into the dragon’s upper back, just between its wings.

At once the electricity from Etzel’s sword ran across the beast’s entire body, and it righted itself, apparently docile.

“Well,” Etzel said to no one in particular. “Er…Thank you?”

The dragon actually purred. The vampire blinked.

“Oh really, now?” he cooed. “Can I control you now?”

There was no response. He took it as a yes.

Then Bahamut roared again, appearing in the air behind them. For the first time Etzel grinned wildly, his eyes glinting.

“Well hello there.”

Then he grabbed the sword and ripped it out. “Go, sweetums!”

His dragon whirled around, opened its mouth, and let loose a volley of purple-black energy blasts that peppered Bahamut, drawing up plumes of white smoke upon impact. It roared, and returned fire.

Of its own accord, Etzel’s dragon did a barrel roll to avoid the blast. It blitzed Bahamut, detonating more energy glares across the larger dragon’s back.

“Circle it!” Etzel commanded. “In for the kill!”

His dragon complied—only for it to be hit by a glancing blow of a blue fireball from Bahamut’s mouth. The two spun off-kilter, Etzel’s dragon’s wings burning.

“Oh dear!” he yelped, catching a fleeting glimpse of something large and unfriendly out of the corner of his eyes. “So sorry!”

Then he jumped straight into the air, sword in hand, as his dragon slammed into Bahamut and exploded in a flash of purple light, disintegrated.

Vampire and dragon tumbled down to the earth far below. Wounded, Bahamut was screaming, thrashing, pieces of its armored exoskeleton separating from its body as it burned.

And then Etzel saw his chance.

Without its armor, Bahamut would be vulnerable.

Etzel pressed a button on the hilt of his sword, and the two prongs disconnected from the hilt, flying into the dragon’s torso. Then Etzel hurled his sword—or what was left of it.

The prongs embedded in Bahamut glowed white-hot, pumping volts of electricity into its body. The final weapon, a blade made purely out of the remaining arc electricity, sheared through Bahamut’s abdomen and punched a perfectly circular hole through its middle.

Bahamut gurgled. It became perfectly still, and then began to dissolve into shards of blue light, fading away into nothingness.

Etzel was only allowed a momentary smile before he realized that the ground was coming up very quickly indeed—

Yet again, something slammed into him and carried him away. Although this something was human-sized, and had black wings. Nor was he trying to kill Etzel.

“Chickadee!” he greeted happily.

Kyle was observing him warily. “Hi. Can you explain why in the hell I just saw you kill Bahamut?”

He pouted. “It attacked me. I had no choice but to defend myself.”

Kyle rolled his eyes. “Well, Nasaero will be glad to know we don’t have to worry about it anymore.”

“How did you find me, anyways?” Etzel asked suddenly, switching topics.

“Veronica installed a tracking chip inside your phone,” Kyle explained. “Probably for laughs, but it ended up being useful.”

“Ah. Yes. About that. I do believe it’s smashed beyond repair somewhere down there.”

“I know. That’s why I panicked when I lost your signal.”

“You? Panicked? Over moi?” Etzel was grinning ear to ear.

Kyle’s ears blazed. “Shut up.”