Demon Forged

option—and Irena found that getting to its underbelly proved almost impossible, even for the teleporters. The dragon seemed to sense Jake and Selah coming, and raked with its hind claws before they could do enough damage with their blades. Bullets bounced off the scales. It moved too quickly to target with a missile or explosive. They’d been able to do little more than fly alongside it, teleporting when the dragon flew ahead, trying to herd it north without success.
    The west bank of Italy approached with terrifying speed. The images Michael had once projected flashed through her mind. People would burn if they didn’t stop the dragon. Until they stopped it, everything would burn.
    Both armed with machine guns, Jake teleported with Drifter in above the dragon’s head, aiming for the eyes. The dragon snapped its jaws back, almost quicker than Irena could track, and caught Drifter by the left leg.
    The Guardian set his jaw, shoved the muzzle of the rifle between the dragon’s teeth alongside his thigh. The burst of gunfire down the dragon’s throat didn’t slow it. Jake teleported behind Drifter, disappeared with the big man, and teleported in beside Selah. Drifter’s leg had been severed mid-thigh.
    His face white, Jake disappeared with Drifter again, and came back without him. Lightning snaked out. The dragon screamed and twisted around, but didn’t slow.
    Lightning and fire—the only two things that frightened it. Twice, she’d seen dragons, when faced with fire, pull upright. Twice, they’d left their bellies exposed for a brief second.
    Maybe they burned, too.
    Irena called in a steel spear. With her Gift, she textured the smooth shaft so that, if bloodied, it would not slip in her hands. Forcing away the memory of blood on his lips, leaking from his ears, she signaled to Alejandro, flying alongside her.
    I am not going to taunt the dragon—yet I need you to break your vow, and use its fire against it again.
    He waited.
    As soon as you draw its fire, Selah and Jake will teleport in above to distract it, while I come in below.
    If you are in the path of the fire, you will burn. I cannot control its flames.
    I might burn. But I will not die.
    His lips thinned as if he prepared to argue, but he nodded. She signaled to Jake, to Selah.
    Jake took her arm, Selah took Alejandro’s. They teleported west, and flew back to meet the dragon head-on—the two teleporters and Alejandro flying slightly ahead and above Irena. They drew closer. Its blue scales gleaming in the moonlight, the dragon roared as if recognizing the challenge.
    Alejandro snapped upright, hovering. He spread his arms. A spiraling inferno roared between them, and he threw it toward the dragon, a funnel of flames that lit the dark sky.
    His own fire. Horror lurched through her stomach. Irena only had an instant to feel it before winging forward beneath the tunnel of flames. Hidden by the fire—and protected from it. The inferno should have singed her feathers, her hair. She only felt the cool night air.
    The dragon shrieked, drew up. Irena slammed into its chest, shoving her spear into the pale green scales.
    It was like lying against a stove; the scales burned with the dragon’s inner heat. Her skin seared. Screaming, the dragon raked at her. Irena shoved her hand into the wound beside the shaft of her spear, called in her kukri knife. She tore open a three-foot gash in its chest. Her head filled with the heavy beat of an enormous heart.
    The dragon’s claws caught her left wing, tore it away. White-hot pain ripped across her back. Irena held in her scream, channeled it into rage. She hacked deeper, into a chest as hot as a furnace. Steaming blood poured over her face, her arms. Her knife hit a rib; she punched her fist between two bones, then ripped them apart—and hung with one hand as the dragon dove. She gripped her spear again, drove it toward the heart. Still not there. She rammed her shoulders against ribs until the crack of bone joined the dragon’s roar. She cut deeper, digging her way in.
    The heart glowed like an ember, so large she couldn’t have circled it with her arms.
    Irena didn’t want to hug it, anyway. She stabbed her spear into the throbbing organ, shoving it deep. The dragon screamed, twisting. Clinging to a rib, she brought her legs up, pounded the heart with her feet. The chambered muscle split, spewing dark blood. Panicked, the dragon’s claws raked its own belly. She lunged up into the chest cavity, hacked