Draw One In The Dark(135)

But he didn't dare look. If he saw her. If he actually saw her, he knew his courage would fail him. Instead, he stood, legs slightly apart for balance, letting his arms uncross from his chest and fall alongside his body. In a position that didn't look quite so threatening.



He looked up at the huge, inhuman eye of the Great Sky Dragon.



"Ready?" the creature said.



"Ready," Tom said.



The creature lowered its head to be level with Tom's and said—in a voice that was little more than a modulated hiss, "You have great courage, little one."



And for a moment, for a brief, intense moment, Tom had hope.



Then he saw the glimmering claw slice through the air. It caught him just above the pubic bone. Tom saw it penetrate, before the pain hit. It ripped upward, swiftly, disemboweling him from pubic bone to throat.



Looking down, Tom saw his own innards spill, saw blood fountain out.



I'm dead, he thought, and blinked with the sort of blank stupidity that comes from not believing your own eyes.



And then the pain hit, burning, unbearable. He screamed, or attempted to scream but nothing came out except a burble of blood that stopped up his throat, filled his mouth, poured out of his nose.



He dropped to the ground and for a second, for an agonizing second, struggled to breathe. His rapidly fading brain told him it was impossible. He was dead. But he tried to breathe, against pain and horrible cold and fear.



He inhaled blood and heard Kyrie call his name. He thought he felt her grab his hand, but his hand was as distant and cold as the other side of the moon.



And then there was nothing.

* * *



"Tom."



Kyrie had struggled against Rafiel and Keith, as they held her back, struggled and kicked and tried to yell at Tom not to do this. It wasn't worth his sacrifice. It just wasn't.



They could fight the dragons. They could.



"No, we can't," Rafiel told her. "He's giving himself up so that the rest of us can get away in peace. If he doesn't do that, all of us will die."



"There's hundreds of them and five of us, Kyrie," Keith said. "We'll all die."



"Then we'll all die," she yelled. "Can you live with the idea you calmly allowed him to sacrifice himself for us?"



"I can't," Edward said. But he was gathering himself up from the ground, and he looked bruised and tired and hurt. He didn't look like he would lead any charges against any dragons.



So Kyrie yelled, "Tom, don't do it," and tried to struggle free, to go grab him. If they ran. If they ran very fast . . .



But Keith and Rafiel both grabbed her and held onto her arms, and covered her mouth.



She was twisting against them, writhing . . .



And it all happened too fast. That claw rising and falling, in the morning sunlight, catching Tom and ripping . . .



Kyrie saw blood fountain at the same time that the men, startled, let go of her. She careened forward, under the power of her own repressed attempts at movement, and the burst got her to Tom just as he was falling, his face contorted in pain.



She didn't even—couldn't even—look down to where his body had been ripped open. His insides were hanging out, and he was twisting, and his face looked like he was suffering pain she couldn't imagine.



His wide-open eyes fixed on her, but she didn't know if he could see her. She fell to her knees, and grabbed his hand, which felt too cold and was flexing in what seemed to be a spasmodic movement.



"They can still save you," she said. "They can still save you. The wonders of modern medicine."



But blood was pouring out of his mouth, blood was bubbling out of his nose, and, as she watched, his eyes went totally blank, in the morning light. Blank and upward turned, and wide open.



She couldn't tell if his heart was still beating and, since it was probably in the mass of organs exposed in the front of his body, she couldn't check. And she didn't need to. She knew he was dead.



She stood up, shaking slightly. And then she lost it.



She never knew the exact moment when she lost it. When she realized she was doing something stupid, she had already flung herself forward, at the Great Sky Dragon, arms and legs flying, mouth poised to bite.



"You bastard," she said. "You bastard." Only it wasn't so much a word as a formless growl, and she kicked at the golden foot and tore with her nails at the golden scales.



She felt more than saw as several of the human spectators, the triad members, plunged forward to grab at her, and she didn't care because she could take them all. All of them.



Only the Great Sky Dragon grabbed her in his talons, one of them still stained red by Tom's blood, and brought her up to his face, to look at her intently with his impassive eyes. "Pure fire," the voice that wasn't a voice said. "I wonder if he knows what he holds."