In which the one true enemy is revealed...
109
It took Lorelei Price a moment, a shake of the head, a rub of the eyes, to fully grasp what happened next.
William Turnquist, the man who'd been her therapist, who'd cleared her for service, who'd brought her into Sword, just calmly entered Reginmal's lair wearing a featureless black robe, exactly like the one he'd worn hours ago in the subway tunnels when she'd thought she'd been hallucinating. He came from behind Blackmoon, moving at a slow deliberate pace. In his hand he carried what looked like a long metallic serpent, it's coils shining silver.
He took that serpent and wordlessly threw it at the Dragon.
It uncoiled in the air, reaching out and latching itself onto the wyrm's tail. Then it grew, wrapping it's rapidly expanding length first around that tail before spreading, bringing it's body around and around Blackmoon's entire sinuous body.
The Dragon was given no time to react. He tried to turn his head, the glow in his eyes, the faces, now deep within his throat, threatening to burst out. His neck didn't get far before it was taken as well into the stranglehold of that strange weapon.
Blackmoon roared, his howl reverberating throughout the massive chamber. He struggled against his metallic shackles, that great, powerful body slamming itself up and down, his talons carving deep trenches into the chamber's hard floor.
It was for nothing, the more he fought, the more the metal serpent tightened. She heard the bones in his wings snap, saw the coils tighten further and further. They ended at his neck, choking him. His mouth though, remained untouched, unmuzzled.
Turnquist moved around the great wyrm's body, heading for them, very careful not to step directly in front of
Blackmoon's cavernous, glowing maw.
“What a marvelous creature you are Trakaan Astranax,” he mused almost absently, that goddamn soothing voice of his never changing tone, ever. He always sounded condescending, whether in his strange office or here wearing a goddamn robe and vanquishing Dragons. “Truly marvelous. I see why you've given us so much trouble for so long.”
“Doctor Turnquist,” she barely sputtered out. “Doctor, wha-- how?”
He turned to her, his eyes cold and dark, more reptilian than Blackmoon's had ever been. This was him revealed. He'd never been warm, never, even when he'd tried. She'd always seen something on the peripheral, on the edge, and now here it was, revealed.
“Turnquist?” He cocked his head, as if the name were alien to him. “Oh yes, Detective Price. That is what I call myself for you and your little group.”
Behind him the Dragon howled again and a piece of the metal snake snapped, it's coils unraveling. Blackmoon, suddenly empowered, brought his body violently up and down, trying desperately to rip his way out.
“Incredible,” Turnquist or whoever he was, said as he watched the spectacle. “He'll be free soon enough. I'll have to tell Gregori to upgrade those coils for the next Dragon, perhaps with some kind of muzzle this time as well.”
He turned to her, his voice calm and conversational, as if all of this were bloody normal. “This is one of the more powerful of those left, you know. There are one or two of them, well Miss Price, let's just say they make this one look like my daughter's pet Chihuahua.”
“Doctor Turnquist... Bill,” Zeus spoke at last through the fur and the fangs, his voice frightened and confused. “What is
this? What the hell is happening?”
The man in the black robes turned to the werewolf, now a mere ten feet away, noticing him at last.
“Detective Machado,” he said, that goddamn voice of his so calm and soothing. “You shouldn't have seen any of this. You shouldn't have been any part of it.”
Then he casually lifted one arm, holding it palm up. She briefly saw something green and metallic flash before a blinding beam of light shot out of that hand and hit Zeus Machado square in the chest, burning a great gaping hole the size of a coconut clean through him.
As Zeus crumbled to the ground and she just stood there in complete and utter shock, the robed killer stuck his hand and that horrible weapon it contained back into the folds of his featureless black cloak.
“And the name is Nikola Tesla,” he corrected the individual he'd just killed, his eyes filled with death and lightning.
End part 109
If you find yourself interested in the whole damnedable thing and wanna throw me a few bucks, here's a link to it on Amazon.