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  This was a whole new chapter for him, an extraordinary development.

  The low, echoing cry was unmistakable to Serpentine ears; he knew the Japanese Dragon would hear it, and the Tiger Serpent as well.

  Indeed, Issindra had heard the call, as she waited in the harbor. The Hunters have found the Chinese Black Dragon in the Palace. Hiding in my shadow, seeking protection without my even knowing. What cleverness. So the Hunters have found him there, instead of me. They have invaded. They must be holding him in the palace at this precise moment.

  Could she return there? Right into the hands of the Hunters? Her mind spun with possibilities. Leaning against the columns of an old temple, watching the harbor shudder from turmoil, she let the steaming rain run down her Serpentine skin.

  Let them all die there, she thought. This was the opportunity she’d sought. A perfect bait.

  Striding a narrow alley, knee-deep in filthy brown water, the Serpent of Japan heard the pleading, moaning song of the Black Dragon and did not know what to make of it. In the palace. In her palace?

  What could it mean?

  Simon and Key opened the doors on all the tiger traps. The levers were swung. The doors rolled open. And the tigers broke free, collected into a single large area used, no doubt, for the Tiger Dragon to watch her servants being eaten alive.

  The tigers snarled and scratched at each other, none too pleased at having to share their space with others.

  “This is why she keeps them separate,” said Simon.

  “Let’s hope they stay put,” said Key.

  They moved to the window, where the Black Dragon stood watching the storm, waiting for the Tiger Serpent’s return.

  “Let’s hope she gets here first,” said Simon. “We have to let her take down the Japanese one herself, then we attack and throw her into one of these traps. She won’t suspect us till it’s too late.”

  “There is still the Ice Serpent, somewhere,” said the Black Dragon. “Old crooked thing, in love with death, looking for his place in history. He will be mine to deal with. I owe him.” He rubbed an old wound at his shoulder, growling deeply, and Simon remembered that, despite everything, the creature came from a dark, vengeful species.

  “Everything will tumble into place.”

  “Oh, it won’t happen like that,” said the Black Dragon.

  Simon frowned. “Suddenly you can see the future?”

  “The part of it I can see does not go like your plan,” said the Black Dragon.

  “Lie to me.”

  “It’s going to go perfect.”

  In a hammering downpour, the Japanese Serpent faced the Tiger Dragon, each of them sliding their tails back and forth across the watery harbor street. He had at last arrived at his ship, and there she was, waiting. The Serpentine female stood a full two feet taller, but she crouched respectfully, twisting her neck to peer up at him.

  He listened to her low, scintillating voice, filled with promise and not a whiff of betrayal. “Set your fear of treachery aside and listen,” she told him. “Listen to the promise of real power without either of us having to die. Listen to the truce I offer, and we shall make it reality. The Hunters have changed nothing. We can still form an alliance and pull from the wreckage a shining prize. How would you like to join me in being the only two Serpents on earth who could deliver the great traitor himself, the Black Dragon of Peking, dead in ashes to the rest of our race?”

  And listen the Japanese Dragon did.

  “He is mine,” she lied. “Captive. Imprisoned.”

  Her adversary sized her up. “What is my part in this?”

  “Your ship will leave port untouched,” she promised. “The first of hundreds that will represent our empire. It begins here. Come with me to the palace and join me in killing the Black Dragon. You can see my sincerity; you can read it in my eyes. I have a vision for us—a future that will enrich us both. This unity, it doesn’t have to be a dream.”

  The Japanese Dragon ground his teeth, regarding the Tiger Serpent with distaste, deeply suspicious of her docile behavior. Her snakeskin was topped with fur, and that, he knew, hides a whole slew of parasites. The street quivered under them as people in the distance screamed; the Hunters would soon be on the way. A decision needed to be made—join with her, attack, or retreat.

  He felt hot, nauseous, as if a volcanic ocean was going to tear out of him, like nothing ever before. She was agitating the power he held within.

  Nearby, his cargo ship was preparing to leave the dock. “Don’t leave with it. Don’t let the Hunters force you away,” said the Tiger Dragon. The Japanese Serpent felt something new in the air, saw an unfamiliar element in her eyes. Was it desire? Was that possible?

  “We can begin our partnership properly at the palace,” she purred.

  Equilibrium, he thought, as strange feelings surged inside him, disgust and attraction in equal parts. He wanted to burn the Tiger Creature, knowing it would bring him the greatest joy. But at the same time, he wanted to keep her, to preserve her, perhaps in formaldehyde. In his head he calculated the difficulty of fixing the fire scars on her skin, wondering, could plastic surgery work well on Dragonflesh? Fascinating challenge.

  He scarcely noticed the arrival of the Hunters.

  The Tiger Dragon saw them first, as they scattered to take up firing positions at some buildings several yards away. They would have difficulty aiming in the storm, but she was taking no chances.

  “The end, or the beginning—your choice,” she hissed, and darted away across the water-glinting street into the flooded boulevard beyond. He will follow, she thought. I have him.

  The Japanese Serpent looked back hatefully at the Hunters as their arrows split the rain water. “Now is not the time,” he spat, and turned to follow the Tiger Serpent. Such muck as this city has, he thought, cannot be worth enduring for her. But he continued his pursuit, spellcasting in the direction of the Hunters to delay them. He’d leave them a nasty surprise.

  Further ahead, the Tiger Dragon could feel his approach behind her. Dragons and Dragonhunters. Too hard to deal with all at once, she thought. But there would be time enough to deal with each, one at a time. Could the Black Dragon already be dead? Did the Hunters leave him to rot in my own palace?

  In the lead, ahead of the other Hunters, Aldric was watching the Japanese Serpent sprint away as the huge cargo ship rolled up on the rising tide, pushed forward by Dragonmagic. The ship now blocked Aldric, cutting off his view of the Creatures.

  “Watch out!” cried Taro. The massive ship lodged against a building with a metallic groan and a tumbling and splashing of fallen bricks. Crates fell from the side of its deck, cracking open, tumbling dead bodies out everywhere.

  Aldric waded away, trying to reach another alley and a way to pursue the Serpents. But the water rose up in the street before him, walling it off in a giant liquid sheet, impassable.

  He started to move forward, to press himself through the liquid wall, but the water on the street began whipping around his legs with a whirlpool motion, as if there were hands gripping him, pulling him down by Dragonmagic.

  He struggled, falling, trying to keep his head out of water, as Alaythia helped him up. Behind her, in the flashes of lightning, Aldric could see the wading Samurai also fending off the aquatic power of the Dragon, slashing at the water uselessly as it tried to pull them under.

  “This magic can’t last—the Thing is gone from here!” Aldric shouted over the rain.

  But Alaythia had her eyes closed. So did Sachiko, and as they began spellchanting, the flood waters around the Dragonhunters began to recede.

  Success. The two women opened their eyes.

  “The storm’s moving!” Toyo shouted, pointing.

  Aldric turned. The monsoon was racing over the city, clouds split down the middle, yellow and black on one side, orange and black on the other, all flowing toward…

  “The palace,” Aldric said. “They’re going to the palace.”

  Then he spied the
arrival of a sputtering, waterlogged taxi from a side street, and Mamoru emerged from the back in confusion.

  “Where are the boys?” cried Sachiko.

  But Aldric knew. His boy was following his own plan.

  The Tiger Palace was empty.

  Issindra emerged into her bedchamber, and knew instantly something was wrong. There were no guards waiting for her. No servants lying dead under a tiger’s claws. And no Black Dragon, captive or dead.

  The Tiger Dragon closed her eyes, using her sorcery to search from room to room. Something trembled in the air, a veiled force that now weakened under her new intensity.

  She turned as the Japanese Serpent stepped into the room behind her. Was that what she had felt?

  “A jungle,” he observed, “within your very walls. How…unique.” His gold-silver head recoiled, as he tried to disguise his repulsion.

  The beetles and insects inhabiting the plants and vines began to ooze out of the floor, trickling over Simon’s hand as he hid in the darkness at the back of the chamber. Key winced as a fat roach dropped onto his head.

  The Tiger Dragon gave a long-fanged grin. “This needn’t be your home,” she told her rival. “I know of your distaste for organisms. You may remain in Japan.” Her wispy wings rattled in the wind, and she again bowed her head in respect. “With the wealth we create together, you may have as many homes as you like, wherever you wish.”

  “And the other Serpents will simply allow us to take their territories?”

  The Tiger Dragon purred. “They will have no choice but obedience—or death. You know our bloodlines. They will fear us above all. They will want to serve us.”

  The Japanese Serpent stared back at her with suspicion and doubt. “Yes, we will deliver them their hated enemy—and where is the Black Dragon of Peking, my sweet?” The word was a taunt, and made his mouth feel unclean.

  “All in good time,” she answered, sending her tigerlike tail sliding toward him. First things first, she thought. One threat at a time. “I must have confidence we are in this together.”

  He moved his own snakelike tail away from her instinctively. Germs, he thought. Vileness. “And just how will this union hold, when so many other Serpent alliances have failed?”

  “It will hold,” she answered, “because we will cement our agreement…” Her tail forcefully encoiled around his. “…As no one has before.”

  Equilibrium. He could feel heat rising in him.

  Her eyes held his gaze. “Our children will keep us together, a Serpentine army of our own.”

  The thought disgusted him. Infant Serpents and the slime they created held little appeal. But imagine an army. If he could make them obey him…unlimited riches and power would follow. This female tigerskin, she made him feel something new, an emotion he’d never known. What was it? He wanted to destroy her, but he wanted somehow to do it over and over, forever. Could he even dream of a partnership? Ah, but she would make a lovely flame, wouldn’t she? Such strength, such impertinence. Torch her, his whole body was thinking. You can’t keep her as a slave.

  Across from the palace at that very moment, in the steaming rainfall, the Ice Serpent had crawled onto a rooftop to watch what was happening. Unity? He wondered. Is it possible? Can there be such beauty, creating life to create death?

  Meanwhile, the Tiger Dragon sensed the doubt in her companion.

  “It may be, Najikko,” she said playfully, “that we shall try to kill each other a thousand times in this alliance. Who knows? All that lively fun can wait. But how will we ever know what we’re capable of achieving, if we don’t even try?”

  She whipped her tail across the floor and away from him. Best not to pressure him too much. She needed him to stay put a few moments longer. He’d scarcely heard the hissing of her snake sculptures, but they were doing their hypnotic work. He was tiring.

  Momentarily calm, Najikko wondered, Was she disgusted by my artificial leg? But his eye followed the path of her tail, and he saw the trap in the floor. His head shot forward, snapping at her face. “You wretch.” He hissed.

  She pulled back, yanking out a silver fang that had lodged in her snout, and with a sweep of her arm, knocked the Japanese Serpent to the ground. But the distraction caused her trance-spell to fail; her hissing snakes quieted.

  For an instant, Simon could see the Japanese Creature squirming, winded, trying to get up, but the Tiger Dragon struck once more, driving his head down and pulling out one of his horns. She had broken his crown. Howling, the Japanese Serpent unfurled its steel wings, slicing her as they emerged from his back.

  With a flash of desperate strength, the Dragon of Japan launched into the air and flew out the great open windows, disappearing into the storm.

  The Tiger Dragon roared, lifting the crescent-shaped horn she had taken from him.

  Simon took a breath. New plan. Time for action.

  The Tiger Dragon waited for the other Serpent’s return, but it did not come.

  There was only a blast of arrows from two young boys, huddled in the rafters of her immense room.

  Simon’s first arrow slammed into her arm, his second into her side, and his third, into her great clawed foot. The bolts fired by Key missed their mark, and studded the wall behind her.

  The Tiger Dragon roared. She moved deeper into the room, angrily trying to get a look at them, her mind going wild. Boys? They sent boys against me? She crouched and prepared to attack.

  Suddenly, black fire rolled out of a dark corner, and the river of flame carried her out of the room, sending her out of the window toward the courtyard. Instantly, she recovered and clawed around the building, entering through another panoramic window.

  Simon cursed. By using fire, the Black Dragon had revealed himself to her. He’d be vulnerable to her trance-spell now, if she could attempt it. Instead, she shot forth her fire, catching the Black Dragon by surprise. Her tigerlike flames, ribboned with orange and black, forced the Black Dragon to dive behind one of her statues of herself. His little canary flew for cover, terrified.

  “Traitor…” hissed the Tiger Serpent. “You will die for your betrayal.”

  “Their world is worth living in,” said the Black Dragon, crouching tighter behind the statue. “Yours is not.”

  The words stunned Issindra. She had not realized he had entered the human world, been welcomed into it. She did not know it was possible.

  Suddenly, Key threw one of the ceremonial lances from the wall, and because he was close, he hit the target. The Tiger Dragon howled as the shaft stabbed into her chest. She stumbled back in shock, pulling at the long handle.

  The Black Dragon tried to throw fire again—but his energy was gone. Simon jumped down from the rafters to the marble floor, where puddles of flames were flickering, circling, and devouring furniture in long, curling wiry strands. Fire climbed the jungle vines, the trees began to burn. With smoke for cover, Simon rushed at the Tiger Serpent, but she kicked him back. He went sliding across the floor, directly into the pouncing form of—the Japanese Serpent!

  Chapter 35

  CHAMBER OF HORRORS

  THE JAPANESE DRAGON SLAMMED its claws into Simon’s arms, pinning him down. “I will not unsettle my mind with you,” the Creature hissed. “I will gently cut you open, quick and quiet.”

  “Kill him, my sweet,” said the Tiger Serpent, sneering. “My gift to you before you die.”

  Eyeing her cautiously, the Japanese Creature lifted a sharp claw, but Key began firing his crossbow, and an arrow hit the Dragon’s arm, yanking it back.

  Najikko screeched, and then very calmly pulled out the silver arrow so it was pointed at Simon, ready to stab him, and down came the blow—

  But suddenly he screeched again.

  A sword slashed into his armored back, releasing a spray of sparks. Aldric burst into the chamber! He slashed the arrow out of the Japanese Serpent’s claw, and it skidded across the room. Furious, the Dragon of Japan blew fire at Aldric, but the Knight lifted his shield, and the fl
ames were sucked into the shield and vanished.

  The Japanese Dragon leapt at Aldric, knocking the shield loose, and rolled with him onto the floor. Simon snatched up his sword, but the Tiger Dragon had her sights on him. She lunged at Simon and carried him into the wall, banging his head roughly.

  Dizzy, Simon fell.

  Above, Key fired another shot. The arrow went right into her shoulder.

  He shouted with joy.

  The Tiger Dragon leapt high, snatching the boy from his spot in the rafters. Key landed hard on the floor. Simon heard him yell in pain. The Tiger Dragon grabbed hold of Simon, throwing him beside Key, and then she paused, preparing to burn them both in one terrible jet of fire.

  Instead, she felt a new spray of arrows thud into her hide.

  A war cry filled the chamber.

  Crawling in from the night were the other Samurai.

  In from the giant open windows they came, in full battle gear, a surprise assault from behind.

  Taro and Sachiko led the charge, calling orders to the other Samurai, who leveled their crossbows at the Tiger Dragon.

  But it was the Japanese Serpent who threw his fire, breathing it out in a great silver-gold flood. The Samurai lifted their shields, but the Warriors were tossed back as if from a firehose blast.

  The silvery, gold-lashed flames slapped them backward. The fire tumbled through the palace, and outside, growing in the night, swirling and rising as it flew outward, away, through the square of palaces. The Japanese Serpent began chanting.

  Yes, called the burning in his core, Now is the time, now is my moment. Now. Now.

  The spinning plume of fire, like smoke from a factory, began to rise quickly in the night, until it stood the height of skyscrapers, a huge funnel cloud made of silver-and-gold fire. Terrific winds whipped around it.