Tabitha (60 page)

‘Hey,
what’s your problem?’ she called up to him, coming closer. ‘Don’t you dare
growl at me!’ she aimed a finger at him as he shifted his body round towards
her on his rocky perch. His growls were getting louder, until she felt them
rumbling right in her chest.

‘What
the hell’s going on with you?’ she said. ‘Look, I didn’t
mean
to take
over your mind, or whatever I did to you. I was trying to get us out of there.
I was trying to stop us getting
killed
.’ Seven carried on growling, and
stretched out his gigantic wings. ‘In fact, why am I even trying to explain
anything to you?’ she said. ‘You don’t understand any of this anyway. I don’t
know what to do to make you –

Seven
leapt off the rocky peak and swept overhead, cutting her off mid-sentence.
Tabitha turned to watch him disappear into the vast wall of cloud, and heard
him roar as he vanished out of sight. ‘Or, you could just leave us here if you
wanted to,’ she sighed. ‘Just like that.’ There was a thundering boom then from
deep in the clouds, and a flash of white light illuminated the mist. Seven came
tearing back out of the murk and soared over Tabitha’s head, circling the
mountain. The creature was too grey though, she realised. Too pale. It wasn’t
Seven. Another roar from the shrouded hills, and her big black dragon burst out
of the clouds and shot after it. Tabitha was shocked to see how much bigger
Seven was than the other. The scrawny grey dragon was like a battery hen; Seven
was free-range. Was that really what he’d looked like, just a few days ago?
Suddenly it was diving for her. Tabitha ran for her life. The smaller grey
dragon didn’t get so much as a flame from its mouth before Seven ripped it out
of the sky and tore its throat. The ground shook beneath Tabitha’s feet as the
two dragons crashed down into the city square, and she watched Seven murdering
his own kind with a feral intensity. The grey dragon roared and submitted
beneath him, and Seven crunched its neck and silenced it. He looked up at
Tabitha with wild white eyes, silver blood raining and slopping from his jaws.
A tyrant. Seven bore down on the mangled dragon like a hawk over its kill, his
wings spread to conceal it. He sank his claws deeper into the twitching grey dragon
with a savage crunch. It screamed in pain when he finished it off, and he bit
down and tore its head away from its gushing neck to tumble down the
mountainside.

‘
Er
… thank you,’ Tabitha murmured, frightened, uncertain if
that was what she meant to say. It was an automatic response. Seven
had
protected them from a threat, after all. She was right to thank him. But mostly
she was terrified by what she saw in him. A true monster; as cruel and vicious as
it was gigantic. Tabitha felt the ground shake beneath her feet again, only
this time so much stronger. There was a sudden deep drone over the hills. The
whole mountain seemed to be trembling with a tremor; stone walls around her
began to shake and tumble down. Seven joined his guttural growl to the creeping
tide of hellish thunder, and fixed his eyes on a colossal dark shape that threw
a vast shadow across the clouds. Whatever was coming for them, it was big
enough to shake mountains. Seven was staring intently, ready to attack. Tabitha
whistled to him, and he looked away from the shadow and down at her. He hadn’t
heard her shouting to him.

‘You
can’t fight that thing!’ Tabitha called up to him, with Fishbowl struggling in
her arm. ‘It’ll kill us! Let’s just go!’ Seven carried on growling at the vast
shape emerging. He looked back down to Tabitha and relented, sweeping down onto
the square and lowering his body for them to climb in.

‘Thank
you,’ Tabitha said softly, stroking his neck as the saddle lowered her and
Fishbowl down into the cockpit. ‘Now let’s get the hell away from that thing!’
Tabitha set Fishbowl free beside her seat as the hatch closed, and she plugged
into Seven’s sight. He felt
there
again, no longer just grey concrete
software; he was a massive animal intensity in the back of her mind. Tabitha
launched Seven into the air and tore off through the clouds, leaving the vast
dark shape to cast its shadow down over the mountain city.

45

Seven shot between
hills and swept down over arid plains, kicking up a boiling desert dustcloud in
his wake. Tabitha watched the dry plains disappear beneath them and give way to
steep jagged mountains that jutted into the sky. She thought back to the fight.
She’d seen the grey dragon gush silver blood. Heard its screams as Seven had
torn it apart. But… if not the grey dragon’s frightened screams, then it would
have been hers instead when it came to kill her. She felt bad for Seven. He’d
done the right thing, brutal and terrifying though it was. He’d saved their
lives. She wanted him to know that thought. That she was grateful. She felt a
tension release between them then, somewhere in the back of her mind. Like the
filter had lifted. His forgiveness. Tabitha smiled, and reached out and stroked
the wall of the cockpit. She could feel the bond between them, really feel it
in her head, like shining silver strands connecting their minds. All of a
sudden she felt a rising anger in him. She felt his growling vibrate the
cockpit. Dark shapes were following them in the sky overhead. Tabitha didn’t
need to guess what they were.

‘Hold
on tight,’ she told Fishbowl, taking a tentacle and touching it the metal nest
around the seat. Fishbowl took hold of the nearest metal rib, and anchored
itself firmly with all its arms as Seven began to tilt. Tabitha turned Seven
around to see what they were up against. A large pack of grey dragons, and the
vast black shape creeping along far behind. Tabitha felt a rabid fury rising up
in Seven’s mind, just like she had when they were faced with the battleship.
Only this time, she didn’t try to hold him back. She was sick of running.

‘Tear
them apart,’ she told him. Seven snarled, wild and raw. They swept higher and
tore off towards the dragons. The leader of the grey pack belched a white jet
of flame down on them. It shook the cockpit, but did no damage. Tabitha yelled,
Seven roared, and they smashed into the dragon and bit deep down into its neck.
The leader struggled against Seven’s claws and bit back. Seven growled and
flinched, but Tabitha didn’t feel it. She wanted to tear its throat out, so
that was what Seven did. She wanted to break its wings off and send it
plummeting to the desert far below; Seven obliged. Tabitha looked up at a
second dragon swooping down on them from above, and had Seven meet it head-on
in a feral wrestling match.

‘Fuck
you!’ she screamed from the cockpit. Seven roared demonic. Minds joined, they
spat a fireball into it. The grey dragon staggered at the blast. She and Seven were
straight in there to crack its head in their jaws. A third dragon crashed into
them from behind and tore a scale from Seven’s back. Seven growled and spun
around, and crunched the dragon’s jaws together in his own. Another chomp and
its head caved in with a bloody gush, and Tabitha opened Seven’s claws to send
the mangled creature flailing lifelessly to the ground. Another dragon collided
with them, and another from behind. They couldn’t fight away the third one too,
snapping at their wings and tearing away Seven’s scales. She felt Seven
panicking as a fourth and a fifth descended on them. Tabitha took control of
his wings. She curled them round into hollow arms, like she’d seen him do
before when he was walking, and hurled a punch at the dragon in front of them.
It snarled and broke away, and a second punch freed Seven’s wing from the
snapping jaws of another. Seven’s huge flightless body was too heavy for their
grasping claws, and suddenly Tabitha felt them falling free. She opened up
Seven’s wings and took off into the sky, spitting fireballs at the dragons that
followed in their wake. They couldn’t take on the pack all on at once, Tabitha
realised. Seven was strong but he wasn’t unstoppable. She’d have to lead them
on and pick them off one by one – unless the pack picked them off first, one
diving bite at a time.

Seven
tore over stark desert. The grey dragons followed close behind. They sank low
towards the sand, churning up dusty beige
jetstreams
in their wake. Tabitha twisted Seven around a jagged hill, slowed to let the
dragons overtake, and let Seven catch up and tear the straggler to pieces.
Seven tore it wing from wing in a firework burst of silver blood, and threw the
creature away to crash down dead in the desert. The rest turned in the air and filled
the sky with white fire. Seven burst through the flames and smashed into the
dragon in the middle. Tabitha folded his wings and they dropped from the sky
with the grey dragon flailing in their claws. Seven ploughed the dragon
head-first into the ground, cratering the sand in a thumping burst. He took a
solid grip around the dragon’s neck, and tore its head from its body in a
silver gush. Tabitha yelled and Seven roared as they leapt back into the sky,
and together they tore apart another in the pack. Suddenly Tabitha felt a
searing pain in her back, and realised that she felt what Seven felt. A dragon
behind them had clawed off a scale and bit Seven’s skin, tearing into bloody
white flesh. Seven spun around savagely and sank his teeth into the dragon’s
throat, biting over and over until the bloody body dropped dead from his claws.
Another dragon bit down into Seven’s wing and another caught his tail, tearing
off the tip. He was getting pinned down.

‘Go!’
Tabitha yelled, wrestling Seven’s mind away from his fury and taking off into
the sky. Seven trailed blood as he tore off over the desert; a sparkling silver
rain in the hard hot sunlight. The dragons followed behind like a pack of dogs,
looking for the next chance to jump in. Tabitha and Seven turned to see them
crowding the pale sky behind.

‘Wait,’
said Tabitha, taking a firm hold of Seven’s mind. From the corner of her eye,
she saw the dragons gaining on them. ‘Now!’ Seven spun around and snatched a
dragon from the sky, crunching its throat in his fangs. He dropped it and shot
off again, forcing the dragons to bank around and change direction to tail him.
Tabitha steered him into a wild spiral and took off in another direction again,
keeping the dragons working for their prey. They’d be easier to fight when they
were tired. Seven’s next retaliation went wrong though. Tabitha didn’t look
before she spun around to face them, and two dragons smashed into them and bit
down deep into Seven’s throat. Tabitha screamed at the pain and wrenched Seven
away, but he was already slowing down. They felt another smash from behind, and
a chunk torn from Seven’s side. Another from his back, and claws scratching at
his head. Seven twisted and writhed in the sky as they mobbed him, fighting
away one assault after another. Suddenly Tabitha felt a rush of panic from him.
He was afraid for his life. Seven broke away from the pack and climbed ever
higher, shooting straight up into the sky. Tabitha saw a split-second vision in
his frightened mind, with a feeling too. Stars. Space. Safety, mixed with fear.
A last resort.

‘You
can go up there?’ she said, shocked. ‘Go then! Go!’ she yelled. How could he
breathe up there? Was that why he was afraid? Seven tore up into the dark high
atmosphere, his jet scales flaring with all the energy he had left. The grey
dragons were all around him, closing the gap. They attacked from all sides in
vicious volleys, and Tabitha felt Seven running out of strength to fight them
all back. Another bite here, another cut there. Grappling him and pulling at
his wings; tiring him out. Wearing away at him until his climb for freedom was
a hellish struggle. Suddenly the desert spun far beneath them as Tabitha fought
for control.

‘Come
on!’ she yelled, urging Seven to carry on climbing. She felt him lagging, beaten
and bloody. When one of the dragons crashed into them from the side and bit
down into his wing, Tabitha could barely get Seven to struggle against it.

‘Come
on!’ she screamed again desperately, wrenching his bloody wing away from the
clamping jaws and leaving a piece behind. But they weren’t climbing for the
distant stars any more. Seven snarled in pain and nose-dived, and Tabitha
strained to straighten him up. Her vision was fading to black as Seven tried to
stay conscious. With his mind fading from her grip, Tabitha couldn’t get in
there to take control. She couldn’t pull him up; they were just falling now.
Tabitha tried desperately to get back into his head, but it was like watching
the world through a grimy old window. An eternal drop to the desert as the pack
dived on at their heels. Tabitha made out a mountain looming below, a vast
rocky plateau that towered over the desert. It came up quicker now, and she
felt Seven’s jets splutter and stop. She wrestled to open his wings out, trying
to slow their fall. It was an aching strain on her mind, like lifting a rock.
As the flat mountaintop got closer and rose up beneath them, all Tabitha could
do was try to slow Seven down for the impact. They kicked up a dust trail
behind them across the mountaintop, and Tabitha saw Seven’s shadow getting
larger beneath them as they flew lower. The racing rocky ground got closer,
closer… and bit. Seven ploughed head-first into the mountaintop and buckled at
the impact, somersaulting with a violent jerk and smashing into the dirt.
Tabitha’s vision went black, and she felt blood rush to her head. She sank back
out of Seven’s mind and looked around the cockpit in panic, almost upside down.
She unfastened her harness with trembling hands. When the straps came loose,
she fell down hard on her shoulder against the wall.

‘Fishbowl?’
she said breathlessly, gripping her shoulder in pain as she looked around the
cockpit. The creature was hidden away behind the seat, grasping on tight.
Breathing sharp shocked breaths.

‘You’re
ok,’ she said, stroking Fishbowl’s arms. It tensed up and moved away though,
backing right up into the corner. Tabitha looked up at the seat for the white
ring of light to open the hatch, but it wasn’t there. Instead she had to press
her hands against the saddle hatch and force it open, and suddenly the dust and
the desert light flooded her blinking eyes. She staggered out onto the rocky
mountaintop, and saw huge dark shapes circling overhead.

‘Seven!’
she yelled, running around to look her dragon in the eyes. She stepped back in
horror then, as his silver blood pooled huge on the sand around her feet. Seven
blinked his white eyes open slowly, and made a low tortured growl.

‘Oh
god,’ Tabitha sobbed, laying her palms on his big broad snout. His torn flesh
gushed. Seven tried to move, growled with the pain, and collapsed down
altogether in his blood. The dragons landed down around them, surrounding them
in a wide circle on the mountaintop. Tabitha tried desperately to stop Seven’s
bleeding, planting her hands down tight against a huge gushing wound in his
neck. It was no use. The silver blood spurted out with all the force of a
broken water main, soaking her catsuit and the desert sand. Tabitha felt a
shaking tremor then, and watched the ground trembling through teary eyes. Up
above something blocked out the sun over the mountain. It was the vast black
ship that had loomed over them in the clouds; the one they’d had to run from.
It was back.

The hulking
black ship stabbed the desert landscape with its presence, dwarfing the flat
mountain beneath it. It was a ribbed monstrosity, a death-black hybrid of whale
and squid. Bigger than Tabitha thought possible. She stuck close to Seven as a
small black craft descended on them, no bigger than a fly when it darted out
from the
mothership’s
belly. Tabitha was tired of
running. Tired of being the freak. She just wanted to finish what those things
had started. With tired teary eyes she watched the alien transport descend like
a giant black wasp.

‘I’m going to
protect you,’ she said, looking into Seven’s half-open eyes. ‘If they even come
near you I’m going to tear them apart.’ The raw drone of jet engines kicked up
a dust cloud in front of them, and the black craft lowered itself down onto
solid spidery legs. As the front hissed open and a tall dark figure emerged,
Tabitha put herself between Seven and the transport. It looked just like the
figure she’d seen long ago on the edge of the castle field, studying the fight
against the Ghosts. A watcher. It walked down the white ramp towards her. It
wore a mask and a black flight suit like hers, though it looked more armoured.
It must have been taller than her by a good two feet or more. Everything about
it was elongated; elegant. Sinister.

‘Come any closer
and I’ll fucking execute you!’ Tabitha screamed at it, pulling the knife from
her belt. The grey dragons looked on silently, like an audience of towering
statues. The desert wind whipped up sand around them, cold and dry on the
silent mountaintop. The watcher was still striding towards her. More dragons
circled above them. A swarm of spiders came scuttling out of the craft,
surrounding her and Seven. The alien figure stopped in the middle of the
circle, and held out its hand to her. Beckoning her to come closer.

‘Are you letting
me surrender?’ Tabitha said cautiously, walking towards it. More figures
watched from the craft. She saw them over the alien’s shoulder as she drew
nearer. Slowly, carefully, Tabitha closed the last few feet between them.
Gently, the alien reached out its hand to her. Tabitha watched it warily. All
the fighting could be over, all the fear and all the running; all she had to do
was take its hand. But she was a Ghost. The last one. And Ghosts went out
fighting. Tabitha pounced and struck with the knife. The figure grabbed her and
threw her to the ground in a whispering cloud of dust. Seven barked a
blood-gurgling roar at the sight of Tabitha going down. She ran at the watcher
again and flew back down to the sand in a daze, only realising after a couple
of seconds that she’d taken a hard punch to the head. The watcher walked over
to Seven, and held its palm out before the dragon’s jaws. Seven was growling
savagely, but was struggling to move at all. The watcher said something Tabitha
didn’t understand, and seemed unhappy with Seven’s behaviour. As she staggered
to her feet, Tabitha watched the figure place its palm on Seven’s snout. A
small flash of light and Seven’s white eyes flickered to black, and his huge
body collapsed dead on the ground. Tabitha screamed and ran at the watcher, and
she felt a gunshot hammer into her back. She smacked face-down in the dirt,
coughing sand. Tabitha rolled painfully onto her back and realised she couldn’t
get up. She saw more watchers tying cords between Seven and their transport
ship. Dragging his lifeless body in beneath the craft’s spider legs; taking
hold. Tabitha watched the hard blue sky swim in a daze. The glowing gunshot
wound was draining all the energy out of her, exhausting her. She could barely
keep her eyes open, and fighting it only made it worse. The world twisted and
faded away as she lost consciousness. More watchers crowded around to take hold
of her.