"Nagi," I said."What's your plan?"
"The Grand Dragon Cross," he said."It's my only option."
"What is the Great Dragon Course?"
"Grand DragonCross," he said."It's.You ever watch Super Sentai?"
"Like Ultima-Man?"
"Exactly," he said.
"That's kind of it," he said."Only I turn into a dragon.One of the Eastern ones—the Shen Long type, you know.I have one chance to surprise him with it.Hopefully my strength will hold out enough to reach in and grab his nervous system."
"Nervous system?"
"Most deadies have a central ganglion," he said."It's a center control system.Guys his size, though… if it's normal sized, it's like pulling a grape out of a cow's guts through its ass.Messy, painful, and it might take a bit of sorting."
"That seems like a really precise analogy."
"I've done this a few times.More than a few."
"What was that you said about your strength?"
"Might not hold out.I lost a lot of energy rebuilding my body.I could use a top-up."
"I'm not a gas station," I said.
And that was when the windows exploded around us.
"Duck!"someone screamed.
An explosion of quack noises against the ground.A blonde woman was screaming as something flapped in her face.The wall behind them crumbled, huge fingers meatily fumbling as bricks fell around it.In the distance, a putrid-looking massive face, teeth glistening with saliva.
The floor shook.The giant reached out and scooped up a group of people in its massive hands.A flash—and then gunfire from below.
"There's men in suits on the ground floor," Tamara said."They look like mobsters!"
"Vic's men!"Nagisa said."Thank the Goddess!"
I turned back around.There was a blur of motion—a splatter of dark ichor from the giant's fingers, and the people in its grasp fell, screaming.A vampire on the ground caught them.Where the giant's fingers fell, the individual goop began to gather together, forming itself into protoplasmic tentacles that reached out and snagged at people.
"Focus on getting the humans away from that hole in the wall," Nagisa said to us."And stand clear.Two Arms!Grand Dragon Cross!"
He ran forward, almost comically slow.Rhonda and Methuselah went parallel to him.When Nagi reached a certain point where they would meet, he jumped—and some kind of fleshy something snapped forward and scooped each of them up.I watched, unblinking, as their flesh combined—stretching taut over bones that seemed carved from ivory, gruesome dripping organs rearranging themselves.
"Come on," Tamara said."You heard the man!"
We ran forward towards the scattering humans even as something vast rolled over us in the air.Nagi and his—well, subordinates—had become some massive scaled beast that launched itself and tore the air as it hit the giant.The floor shook as they collided.
"This way," Tamara screamed."They're clearing the undead out below."
We moved people away—reaching in and grabbing people's outstretched hands from the flesh remains of the giant that had been severed, pulling them bodily away from the slime—and ran back towards a blocked off-escalator.Vic was standing at the bottom, a cadre of men with machine guns behind him.
"Stacey!"he screamed.
I waved people down, looking over my shoulder.The giant roared in the distance.I turned and watched as the Nagisa-dragon sank its teeth into the monster's neck.Dragon talons were slamming it in the face repeatedly, trying to break its defenses.
"Nagi might need your help up here," I screamed, back down at the floor.
