Dark Storm (8 page)

His feet sank into the edge of the magma pool. Fiery pain streaked up his legs as flesh scorched and burned. Dax shuttered his mind against the agony and tried to absorb and use the heat as the dragon’s soul had absorbed and used his fireball earlier. His hands shot out, tracing wards in the air, spinning and twisting energy and the molecules of air in the room into a shining web that he cast around the insubstantial mist of the dragon’s soul. A rainbow of light reflected through the room as the energy swirled around his opponent.

Determination and calm rolled through him as the net settled over the dragon. He could feel the spirit gather itself, like any creature would before it strikes. He spread his fingers wide and held them, palms out, between himself and the dragon. Gently, he touched thumb to thumb, then forefinger to forefinger, completing a circle of power, and through that circle, he drew his net of energy tight.

The beast thrashed and roared in outrage, but the bonds of his net held fast. Slowly, relentlessly, Dax pulled the net tighter and tighter. He inched his way backward, dragging the protesting weight of the dragon with him.

Heat jetted out, splashing over him like a geyser. His skin burned. His hair singed. He did not release the net. He kept pulling it through his circle of power, drawing the dragon’s soul in tight, folding it in upon itself, pulling it away from the magma pool that he suspected was feeding its strength.

As he pulled, he began to weave new, cooler threads of power over the others. And with each precisely woven thread, his connection to the dragon’s spirit increased. He could feel its consciousness pressing up against his own. Each writhing fight, each blast of heat and power, was as much instinctive self-protection as it was a test of Dax’s own strength. As the last bit of Dax’s net passed through his circle of power, a great force snapped out, but this time the power didn’t strike him; it raced up the flows binding it, following them back to Dax.

“No.” Realizing its intent, Dax straightened abruptly and tried to weave protective wards. But his efforts were too late, and in speaking he had left an opening, a second circle of power, only this one led into him. The soul rushed forward, a blazing pulse of light and heat that shot into his mouth and down his throat. Energy, heat, power flooded him, burning him from the inside out. He staggered back, releasing his now empty web of power.

The dragon’s soul was inside him, searing him. An immense fiery presence that threatened to burst his body asunder. Dax spun a new web, only this time around himself, drawing the threads tight around his own body, adding even more strength to the skin and bone made dense by his centuries locked inside the volcano.

His skin turned dark and began to shudder. Red scales rippled down his arms. Dax held up his hands in surprise as his nails grew crystal clear and lengthened like claws … like the dragon’s own diamond talons. The change didn’t feel like a normal Carpathian shapeshifting. It felt elemental, as if the transformation was happening at more than a cellular level.

Dax fought back, unwilling to relinquish his own body to the soul that had leapt into him. He willed his hand to change back, his nails to soften and shorten. Inch by inch, he fought back the change sweeping over his body, fought to keep his own form.

Inside his body, a second, similar battle raged, only this was not a battle of flesh, but a battle of minds. The dragon’s soul surrounded his own and tried to absorb him into itself. It tried to dominate him. But Carpathians were predators, not prey, and Dax was a hunter of immense skill and drive and determination. He did not surrender. Not when fighting the most powerful and heinous vampire the world had ever seen, and not while fighting a powerful, ancient soul for control of his own body.

The dragon rifled through Dax’s memories, tearing into his brain, past his substantial inner barriers, ripping through the outer hunter into the depths of Dax’s soul. The life of aloneness. The friends and fellow hunters who had turned to evil. The other hunters who had feared and avoided him once they realized he could tell which of them was about to turn vampire. He’d known before they did. Known, and waited close by to kill them before they could harm others.

The Old One found his memories of the friends loved and lost to Mitro Daratrazanoff’s evil. The family who had taken him in after his own parents were killed by yet another friend turned vampire. The wish, long forgotten now, for a lifemate of his own. The beautiful Arabejila, companion and friend for more years of life than any unmated Carpathian warrior should ever have to endure. And yet with her, all things had become bearable. The years had not weighed so heavily. The emotions lost to him as he aged had always seemed close at hand when she was near. He had always admired her. Honored her gentleness. Respected her quiet strength. And she had been strong. As strong as he was in her own way. She’d had to be to endure the ruined life Mitro had left to her.

Never once had Dax heard her complain. Oh, he’d seen her eyes grow dark with sorrow. Heard her weep softly in the day when she thought he was asleep. But she’d never complained. Just as she’d never blamed him for not killing Mitro when he had the chance.

Dax had always known Mitro was not right. He’d always stayed close by, waiting for the darkness growing in Mitro’s soul to spill over. But when Mitro’s soul recognized Arabejila as his lifemate, Dax had thought them safe, thought the power of that bond would keep Mitro from the brink, would heal what was broken inside him.

Instead, it had unleashed the monster. And Dax, who had been lured into a false sense of security, had not been watching as he should—as he would have had Arabejila not been Mitro’s lifemate. He’d thought her strong enough to heal him, as she so effortlessly healed all things and all people with just her presence.

She was of the earth.
The dragon’s voice thundered in Dax’s head again, pounding at the edges of his skull.

“Yes,” he confirmed. “Stronger in her gifts than any I ever knew.”

She sent you to me.

“No, Old One. She is dead. She died long ago.”

She is of the earth. She and her daughters. She sent you to me. She sends a daughter to you now.

It surprised him that the dragon knew about the approach of Arabejila’s descendent, but perhaps it should not. The dragon, after all, had been buried in this mountain much longer than Dax. It had
become
the mountain; its flesh had become the mountain’s stone; its fire had become the mountain’s fire.

“That daughter will not arrive in time. That is why, if you have strength to give, I ask that you give it to me now. If I cannot stop the vampire, he will destroy this world. So tell me, Old One, will you help or hinder me? There is no time left. Decide now.” Dax drew a breath and dropped his defenses, baring his mind to the dragon’s consciousness, everything he and Arabejila had fought for all these years, everything he had loved and lost, everything he believed in, everything he fought for.

As the dragon’s mind had pillaged his mind, its power had tested his power, its strength, his strength, now its soul invaded his, peeling him down to the barest essence of his being and examining him with ruthless thoroughness.

Dax felt like he was drowning in the fires of hell. Before, when the lava had burned him, he’d managed to compartmentalize the pain, push it from the forefront of his mind and ignore it, but now there was nowhere that was not wide open and raw and throbbing with agony. Sweat poured down his body, turning to steam against his superheated skin. Dax hardly noticed. An inferno raged inside him.

Hoping to escape the indescribable agony, Dax transitioned into pure energy, a skill normally used to heal someone else, but even as his body became a white glow of light, he could not escape. The vast, fiery redness of the dragon’s soul was there, searing him. Body, mind and soul were invaded with burning heat and energy. A latticework of magic and energy led back to every particle of his being, connecting them. That latticework grew tighter, pulling Dax’s light form and the dragon’s shimmering red soul together, closer and closer until they touched.

In that instant, for a brief flash of time that seemed to stretch to eternity, the dragon’s memories sped through Dax’s mind. Eons of existence. Soaring flights. Fiery battles fought between winged behemoths dominating the skies. Dense, savagely beautiful jungles, a world that had existed long before the first footsteps of man. A mate, sleek and beautiful, with wide, wind-filled wings and sharp, curling talons. Then man with his steely spears, hunting the creatures he feared. The beautiful mate fallen to the spears of men. Rage. Fire. Blood and destruction raining from the sky. And finally, age and weariness … a wound draining ancient strength. A choice to sleep in the heart of the volcano until the world passed away.

The Old One was ancient indeed. A vast, primordial power. An ancient intelligence birthed when the world was still young. Red dragon. Fire dragon. No wonder it had chosen a volcano’s heart for its final resting place. The wonder was that it even considered sharing any part of itself with Dax at all.

And share it did. The dragon’s long life, each moment of thought or feeling, instinct and craving before this one became part of Dax’s memories, part of him. The two became one. Not two beings merged together, but two souls connected by a single body. They could feel each other, move with one another.

The magma pool rose to fill the chamber, and the crystallized remains of the dragon melted back into the liquid earth’s blood that had spawned him.

Centuries of living deep in the labyrinth of caves meant Dax had explored every inch possible. He knew the river of lava flowing beneath the earth, a long ribbon of bright orange and red magma and the long tubes that formed the underground subway. He knew every chamber, some with walls of crystalline beauty and others under steaming water. Mud pools bubbled and spat while pools of hot mineral water sent steam rising like fog through caverns.

The problem was that Mitro had had the same time to explore his environment as well. Dax could no longer separate the evil scent from the living abomination; the stench of the undead was everywhere, making it impossible to track him—unless you were a dragon.

Dax felt the Old One stretch, testing senses. Suddenly, like a stick puppet, Dax’s body whipped around awkwardly and began moving toward the lava tube on his left. He staggered, his body impossible to control, falling sideways into the wall. The sharp edges of rock scraped at his skin, peeling off the top layer. In the glare of the magma pool, his burnished arm appeared covered in overlapping ovals of red gold. He blinked down at the strange patterning and then touched them. The ovals felt hard, like armor. With his strange diamond-hard nails he tapped them tentatively.

Scales? Like a lizard?

At least it kept him from bleeding. That could come in handy in battle. He’d evolved there in the volcano, and clearly now there would be more changes. The enticing whispers of the earth hadn’t disclosed that his body would be altered on an elemental level if he allowed the Old One’s soul to share his physical form.

Before he could make a move, his body jerked again toward the lava tube, a large round tunnel he knew went for miles beneath the peaks. He felt like a marionette being jerked around by a drunken puppet master. He sensed the dragon’s impatience and realized that being without emotions was a double-edged sword. Carpathian males lived for so long that not feeling was a terrible burden, yet with that came an advantage when hunting.

The dragon was eager for the chase, believing Mitro to be no more than an irritation. He wanted to slumber, didn’t want to remain awakened, and once Mitro was disposed of, he planned on doing just that. Dax’s body jerked again, his foot lifting awkwardly and then setting down a large stride away, nearly throwing him off balance.

Exasperated, he scowled.
Just give me direction. Don’t try to control the movements of my body.

How was he going to fight Mitro when he could barely take a step without falling? The dragon hadn’t had a body in centuries and Dax’s body was far too small for him to comprehend how to move it around.

The dragon gave a snort of derision.
It is no wonder this great evil has prevailed. You are a puny one, Carpathian.

Perhaps that is so,
Dax soothed. After all, in relation to size, it was true.
But I can maneuver this body much more easily than you. If we fight one another how will we succeed in our mission?
If pandering to the dragon’s ego would result in destroying Mitro, Dax could manage it with no problem.

Power pulsed deep inside, pushing against the restraints of his physical frame. His entire body vibrated, his brain crashing hard against his skull. His body hit the side of the tube hard, this time flinging him to the floor. He couldn’t imagine how frustrating it had to be for a massive dragon to find himself confined in a human frame, but Dax was finished reasoning.

And I was told your kind was so intelligent.

Fiercely he pushed back, slamming a wave of massive force straight at the Old One’s soul. The internal explosion sent his body reeling. For a moment his head felt as if every bone in his body would shatter. He set his jaw and accepted the pain.

We can do this all night, or work together to destroy the vampire.

Amusement filled his mind. The dragon had a rusty sense of humor.
For a puny lizard, you have a hard punch. How do we do this? I cannot work this strange body.

If you can find him, point me in the direction. I’m Carpathian. I know you are aware of the things we can do. I’ll shift into whatever we need to hunt him. If we need your form, you take over, otherwise we work as a unit, with you guiding me where we go and me getting us there. Is that acceptable?

There was a long moment of silence.
So be it.

Dax didn’t give the Old One time to change his mind. He moved into the lava tube at the dragon’s urging. As Dax shifted into mist and sped away through the vents and fissures in the black volcanic rock, the dragon was there with him, part of him, a separate soul and consciousness sharing his body, his gifts. Together, yet still separate. More powerful together than either had been apart. Neither of them would ever be alone again. And both of them streaked through the volcano with one purpose foremost in their minds: to stop Mitro Daratrazanoff or die trying.