Chapter 82: The Dome

Ethan looked up at the thing on the Museum’s glass dome and did not move.

It was not only the size. It was not the black scales, or the horns curving back from the skull, or the blood still wet at the corners of the mouth. It was the eyes. Narrow. Vertical. Watching him the way a man watches a lock he already knows how to open. Cold. Deliberate. There was a mind in there, and it was not hungry in the simple way the bats were hungry.

His fingers tightened on the sword. The air in the hall changed. Heavier. Thicker. It pressed on his skin from every side, as if he had stepped into water he could not see.

What the hell is this?

He locked onto the alley outside and tried to jump. Space trembled. For a split second a faint distortion crawled over his shoulders, the familiar pull of the fold. Then it collapsed. He was still standing on the same tile, under the same moon, with the same pair of eyes on him.

His face hardened. "What?"

He tried again. Nothing. He switched targets and reached for the Anchor in the air-raid shelter, the one he had set so he would never be stuck in a building like this. The moment the ability touched the energy around the Museum, pain knifed through his skull. He staggered half a step. It felt like he had run his mind into a wall.

"What the hell is going on?"

Panic would not open a door. He drew the sword and swung at empty air, just to know.

The blade stopped. Not on flesh. Not on metal. On something that was not there until it was. Golden sparks burst off the edge. For a breath, faint gold lines showed in the air, spreading like cracks in glass, an invisible skin over the hall. Then they faded.

He stared at the place they had been. So that was it. Something had sealed the space around the Museum, and whatever had built the seal was strong enough to stop a teleport and shrug off steel.

He turned inward, toward the Survival Space. That connection still answered. "Elena."

She looked up from wherever she had been standing with Lana. He reached, and the pull worked. Elena and Aria appeared beside him on the tile. At least the Space itself had not been cut off.

Elena blinked at the wrecked hall, the broken cases, the moon through the dome. "Ethan. What’s wrong?"

"Teleport’s blocked." He tipped his chin at the glass. "Something sealed the Museum."

Aria followed his gaze. The color left her face so fast it looked like a blow. "That’s..."

Elena glanced at her. "You know what it is?"

Aria nodded, slow. "A Hornscale Beast."

"A what?"

"There was a fossil on the second basement level." She swallowed. "Ancient. The Museum had people reconstruct the skeleton and build a model of what it might have looked like alive." She pointed at the dome. "It looked exactly like that."

Ethan stared at the horns, the scales, the smile that was not quite a smile. Extinct for millions of years. Standing on a roof in Silvermont because the world had decided fossils were allowed to get up. Of course. Ordinary animals had already become monsters. Prehistoric nightmares were just the next line on the list.

"That thing is causing the seal?"

"It has to be." The pressure around them was too neat to be weather. It had already killed his jump. It had already stopped a sword.

Then the creature moved.

Bang.

Its head slammed the dome. The Museum shook. Dust sifted out of the ceiling and stuck in Elena’s hair. Nobody spoke.

It drew back and hit again.

Bang.

Cracks raced across the glass, spiderwebs from the point of impact, catching the moon. Ethan’s mouth went tight. "Get ready."

Another strike. Bang. The cracks ran farther. One more and the dome would not be a dome.

He raised the sword. The beast drew its head back and came.

Boom.

Tempered glass gave. Shards blew inward, a bright rain. The head pushed through the frame, horns scraping steel, black scales wet under the emergency lights. The jaws opened. Thick, uneven fangs. The smell that came with it was old blood and stone dust.

Elena called an Ice Flame spear into her hand. Blue-white fire wrapped the shaft and dropped the temperature in the hall until Ethan’s breath showed. The creature’s eyes shifted to the spear. It watched. Almost curious.

"Ethan."

"Try it."

She nodded, drew her arm back, and threw. The spear tore the dark, blue fire trailing, aimed at the eye. For an instant it looked clean.

Then the Hornscale Beast opened its mouth, and the air changed. A violent suction tore out of its throat. The spear jerked off its line. Elena’s eyes went wide. "What?"

The weapon dragged sideways, as if a hand had closed on it, straight into the jaws.

"No!"

The beast swallowed the spear. The jaws snapped shut. Ethan’s stomach dropped. A heartbeat later the mouth opened again, and the spear came back out, intact, moving several times faster than Elena had thrown it.

"Ethan!"

He hit her shoulder and knocked her clear. The spear missed her face by inches, kissed her shoulder, and took the display case behind her.

Boom.

Glass exploded. An antique vase burst into pieces. Blue flame crawled the fragments and frosted the floor in a white fan. Elena stared at the wreck, breath unsteady.

"It absorbed my ability."

"Not just absorbed." Ethan did not look away from the dome. "It sent it back."

The mouth opened a little. For a moment he thought he saw amusement in the narrow eyes. It knew what it was doing. That was the worst part. Strength he could price. A thing that understood their attacks was a different bill.

"Ethan." Aria stepped forward. Blood from the earlier cut had dried dark on her shirt. "Let me try."

She dropped both hands toward the floor. The plants in the hall answered. The half-withered welcoming pine in the corner shook. Roots burst the tile. The trunk thickened. Branches reached. Vines tore up the walls and climbed the broken frame like ropes that had been waiting for the order.

In seconds, dozens of them had the beast. Neck. Torso. Legs. Tail. It snarled, and the sound walked the steel. Aria clenched her teeth. "Got you."

The vines cinched. Scales groaned. For a moment it could not move. Her eyes widened. "It’s working!"

Then the tail went still. Ethan saw it. "Aria—"

Too late. Something cracked. The base of the tail split. Rows of dark holes opened in the flesh. His eyes widened. "Get down!"

The holes fired. Dozens of black bone spikes, too fast to follow.

Pfft. Pfft. Pfft.

They shredded the vines. Green rained across the tile. Aria tried to yank what was left back. A few spikes changed direction and came for her. She threw an arm up. The last vines took the hits and still threw her three steps. One shard tore her forearm. Blood came at once.

"Aria!" Elena caught her before she went down.

Ethan’s face hardened. Matter Restructuring took the fire hydrant off the wall. Metal came apart in the air, twisted, flattened, compressed. A heartbeat later he had an alloy shield half a meter wide. He caught it and stepped in front of them.

The rest of the spikes arrived.

Clang. The first bounced. Clang. The second dented the face of it. Clang. The third nearly ripped it out of his hand. He dug his boots in. The last one took the center and rang up his arm until his fingers went half-numb.

He looked at the dents. "Armor-piercing." His eyes went back to the thing in the frame. "That’s going to be a problem."

Aria wiped blood off her arm with the heel of her hand. "Can we kill it?"

"We have to." He looked at the gold he could no longer see and still felt on his skin. His jaw tightened. "The space is still sealed."

If the barrier held, there was no alley. No shelter. No door except the one the beast was widening with its horns. It pulled free of the ruined vines. The broken dome groaned under the weight. Elena’s fire burned brighter around her fingers.

"It’s coming down."

Ethan nodded once. Outside, far but not far enough, something roared. Deep. Familiar. The windows that were left shivered.

The Tiger King.

And under that roar, a dense buzzing, hundreds of wings, already turning toward the Museum.