“But Marci’s inside!” he cried. “I can’t just—”
“If she was close enough to get hurt by your flames, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” the spirit said. “Like I told you, things have gone a bitstrange. But that can work to our advantage, too. Just give it a try.”
Breathing fire was the last thing Julius wanted to do. He’d never been good at it, and he couldn’t get over the idea that Marci was on the other side of that wall. If he went too hot, he might cook her before he knew it. But fear of losing Marci again made a dragon do crazy things, so he breathed in deep, reaching down into the fire that burned inside him until his skin heated and his throat tingled.
Not including his attack on General Jackson, which he barely remembered and thus didn’t count, Julius hadn’t breathed fire in a very long time. As a result, his first try came out both too fast and too wide. His second attempt was much better, a blast of flame that turned from orange to yellow to white as he pushed harder and harder.
He melted the wall Marci had vanished through in seconds, then the car waiting behind that. Next came a large stretch of drywall that he turned into a blackened hunk, then a washing machine and a dumpster, but still there was more. The column of trash was only twenty feet across, and yet the more he burned, the more there was. Soon enough, he’d made a tunnel of slag he could walk inside, folding his wings tight against his body to avoid the glowing edges of the hole he’d cut.
He was now far deeper into the pillar than it was wide, but there was no end in sight. Every time he tried to stop, though, the Raven on his shoulder cawed for him to keep going, keep pushing.
He was in serious danger of overheating when the spirit suddenly flew up to perch on top of his head, his black eyes shining in the light of Julius’s flames as he leaned toward them to whisper, “Ready?”
The word went through him like a knife. He could actually feel it traveling down his fire, and then, deep inside, deep down in the parts Julius didn’t touch easily or often, something clenched. It was like teeth had bitten down on the source of his flames, but not to yank them out. Instead, a strange breath breathed him hotter, filling his fire with new color and heat as a familiar female voice spoke through the flames.
Ready.
The word was still dancing when Julius’s fire leaped out of his mouth. Literally jumped, the flames moving with a life of their own as they twisted and roared together into the shape of a dragon. An enormous red one with wide, flaming wings and sharp, sharp teeth that ripped into the endless wall of trash like flaming swords, but didn’t harm it. This flame didn’t touch the physical world Julius had been slowly burning his way through. It burned the slimy magic itself, cutting through the muck like a blowtorch through paper until the pillar of trash was completely consumed, and in the ashes, a new world appeared.
Julius stumbled back in surprise, coughing as the smoke filled his lungs. They were standing in the Pit. Not the current flooded one, but the Pit as he remembered it from their fight with Bixby.
A few seconds later, Julius realized that wasn’t quite it either. This Pit was far bigger than what he remembered, a huge open cavern that smelled like a grave. Strange as that was, though, Julius couldn’t spare it more than a glance. His instinctual focus was pinned on the new dragon in front of him.
The one that had come out of his fire.
“Who are you?” he whispered.
The dragon looked over her shoulder, her red flames flickering like laughter.Don’t you recognize me, Baby J?
Julius jumped. Like before, the words had come from inside him, but not from his mind. This was deeper, down in the roots of his fire. Weird as that was, though, whatreallyknocked Julius for a loop was the part where she was right. Hedidrecognize that voice. It was one he knew well, but never thought he’d hear again.
“Amelia?”
In the flesh, the fiery dragon said with a grin.Or not, as the case may be. But I see how all this awesomeness might be a little intimidating. Give me a second.
She spread her wings, and the fire that was her body shifted, the flames swirling into something far more compact. By the time they settled again, Amelia’s human form stood in front of him exactly as he remembered her from the first time they’d met, right down to the red dress and the flask on her hip.
“There,” she said in a physical voice this time, looking at Julius with eyes that gleamed like the fire she’d just been. “Man, it’s good to be back.”
She flashed him a cheeky smile, but Julius just stood there sputtering.
“How?” he got out at last. “You were—”
“Dead?” She laughed. “Only temporarily.”
“But Svena saw Bob kill you,” Julius said angrily. “I collected your ashes.”
“You did?” she said, her voice touched. “That was sweet of you, kiddo, but you should have known there was no need. This is me we’re talking about! I take ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’ to a whole new level.”
“Modest as always, I see,” Raven said, flapping over to land on her shoulder. “But I have to say, you’re looking much better.”
“Ifeelmuch better,” Amelia said, looking down at her body. “Julius gave me one hell of a light.” She flashed him a grateful smile. “Thanks for that, by the way. You wouldn’t believe what I’ve been through today.”
Julius didn’t believe any of this. “So Bobdidn’tkill you?”
“Oh no, he killed me good,” Amelia said. “But only because I asked him to.”
He stared at her in horror. “Why would you do that?”
