Landaine touched one of his cards, and a cascade of greenish-yellow pus-colored light spiraled to the floor below. Dania snarled and leaped over the sheltering construction debris blocking her path to Landaine. She felt, more than saw, Hush's shadowy form moving with her. That tangled fear and rage inside her ignited as she barreled into Landaine from behind.

  He pitched forward against the old, beat-up railing. A snapping sound shot through Dania's enhanced hearing, and she felt it begin to give way, but she didn't care.

  Her prey was finally beneath her claws.

  She punched into his sides, anchoring her body to his so that she could position herself for the same spinal bite that had finished Rhett in their battle.

  "Deckbearrrerrrr!" Hush's shouted whisper grated against her skin like a thousand tiny blades, and she looked up just in time to see the railing separate from the wall. Landaine pitched forward, toppling over the edge, and Dania's stomach lifted up toward her mouth as she fell with him.

  "Dani!" Jake screamed. Suddenly, Dania felt herself become thin and insubstantial as she faded to a shadow version of herself.

  I played Become Shadow on you, Jake's voice whispered in her mind. Are you all right?

  Landaine landed on something that wasn't the floor. At first, Dania couldn't figure out what it was, other than green and marginally softer than concrete or the marble tile that covered half of the partially-remodeled foyer. Dania slid off to the side, rolling harmlessly to the floor a second before her body reconstituted itself next to a wall of green.

  A wall that split horizontally and started moving in two directions at once. The top slid to the left, while the bottom went to the right. Dania rolled to a crouch and took a swipe at the bottom, only to have her claws skitter off a surface formed of interlocking diamond-shaped plates. Like armor.

  Or scales.

  Dania backed away slowly as she realized what she was looking at. A giant, hooded snake head reared up from the massive green coils she and Landaine had hit. It swung around, tongue flicking out as it tasted the air.

  "Behold my creature!" Landaine screamed. He'd regained his feet and stood in a wide stance, balancing on the scales behind the snake's head. "Even such power as this must obey me! You cannot resist. Bow to your new god!"

  "Fuck that," Dania muttered, and cycled her deck just as her Dire Wolf Tracker made a flying leap from the broken gallery to the snake's scales. It let out a defiant howl that echoed Dania's own sentiments and closed powerful jaws about the snake's skin. The snake shivered, then lifted its tail and used it to swat the Dire Wolf to the floor. It dissolved into tawny light and arrowed back to Dania's chest.

  Gunfire erupted again as the cops opened fire on the creature. Dania ducked and ran to the nearest wall. The snake coiled between her and the cops, and the last thing she needed was to be shot by one of her alleged allies. Hush joined her next to the wall, his shadowy bulk a comfort as usual.

  "That ssssnake isss not a crrrreaturrrre. She isss liike meee," Hush said.

  "What?" Dania focused her attention and cycled her cards: Tar Pit, Scimitar Cat, Short-Faced Bear, and her Expedition Charter. "'What do you mean?" She touched the Tar Pit first, as usual. She would want the extra power, and it had proved to be useful in a fight. Unfortunately, it was too small to engulf the massive serpent, so she directed it to manifest under the coil that held the serpent's tail. The snake splashed down into the tar, and the oily petroleum scent joined the stench of gunpowder and fear in the air.

  Maybe that will give some of the other creatures attacking it more of a chance than my poor Dire Wolf Tracker had.

  "Shee thinkssss herrr own thoughtsss. She isss not a deckbearrrer crrrreaturrre."

  "Wait." Dania turned her full attention to Hush. "You mean she's an overland monster? Like you?"

  "Yessss. But young."

  "So she's here because she likes Landaine? Like you like me?"

  "I dooo not think sssssoo. She doessss not ssseeem happy."

  "So he's got some hold over her…Hush. Listen to me. I need you to get to Jake, can you do that? I need you to tell him to play his temptation card and then keep his head down. If we can get her to turn on Landaine, we've got him. His other deckbearers are dead or have run. It's just him now."

  "I willl go nowww." She felt Hush lean against her briefly, and then his solid, shadowy presence vanished. Dania threw out her Short-Faced Bear to join the various other card creatures the remaining card cops had sent to battle the giant snake. Then she cycled her cards again and looked around to assess the situation.

  A creature that looked a lot like a golden unicorn with clawed hooves charged at the snake, tucking its head at the last second to drive its shining horn deep into the snake's scales. The snake shuddered, and ripped her lashing tail up out of the bubbling morass of Dania's Tar Pit. She swung her tail at the unicorn, which caught the blow broadside on its flank. It stumbled back, its legs buckling, but it didn't dissolve into a spiral of light. Dania's Short-Faced Bear jumped in next, followed by a dude wearing something that looked a lot like the power armor she'd seen in an anime once a while back. While her bear made huge, haymaker swipes with his claws, power armor dude began hammering at the snake with metal fists, actually denting the deep, jade green scales.

  I need more power! she thought as the snake hissed and struck, spearing her bear with one venom-dripping fang. Like the unicorn, her bear didn't die outright, but he staggered back, shaking his shaggy head as if trying to orient himself. She cycled her cards again, and her eyes fell on her Fossil Bloom.

  If it kills my bear, or another Beast creature, it will come back to me with a zero power cost. I just gotta keep this bloom safe… She looked around at the debris and body-strewn wreck of the foyer. Movement caught her eye just behind a nearby pillar, and she peered cautiously around it.

  The woman in the skirt suit from upstairs, no longer wearing her green-skinned mantle, held one hand over the bloody mess of her abdomen as she fought to crawl toward the battle.

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  "Stop," Dania said. "What are you doing?"

  "Gonna…kill…Landaine," the woman gritted between her teeth. "He…lied…to us! Used us as cannon…fodder for the…card cops!"

  Well, yeah, Dania responded in the privacy of her own mind, the fucker's crazy, didn't you figure that out? But she said none of that, instead, she trusted her gut and took a leap, playing her Fossil Bloom on the back of the pillar.

  "Listen," she said. "If you protect that flower, I think I can defeat Landaine's snake. But I need someone to protect it while I find a weapon. Can you do that? Use your cards? I'll make sure you get healing, afterward, if you do."

  "Swear it?" the woman whispered.

  "I do," Dania said. "On my own cards, I swear it. Just keep that flower alive, no matter what happens."

  "Gun," the woman said, and pointed. Dania followed the line of her vision to see the top half of a man in a security-guard uniform. A semi-automatic pistol lay close to his head, as if it had fallen out of his hand when he'd been ripped in half.

  Gunfire continued to sporadically split the air, and so Dania stayed low, sheltering behind the snake's massive bulk as she crouched and ran to pick up the weapon. It wasn't a model she recognized, but it didn't take her long to figure out how to drop the magazine and check her ammunition.

  Six rounds. Fuck. Okay. Make 'em count.

  Dania slapped the magazine back into place and racked the slide to put a round in the chamber. With no safety that she could see, she was as ready as she could be.

  If I can get close enough, I can put a bullet in his brain. The biggest mistake most deckbearers make is forgetting that things other than cards can hurt them too—

  A wordless scream reverberated through the space, cutting through the sounds of gunfire and the sounds of Landaine's unceasing raving. The snake's scales slithered against each other, creating a deep hiss that shivered along Dania's skin. She looked up to see the giant head rearing back, as if it had been struck by an invisible blow.

  Jake's Word of Death, she realized. That had to hurt…but she's still going!

  "Deckbearrrer."

  "Hush!" Dania whirled to face her friend. "Did you talk to Jake?"

  "Yesssss. He sayssss he hassss made the plllay. But it willl take ssseveralll roundsss to turrrn herrrr. Asss much asss her powwwerrr cossst."

  "How much is her power cost?"

  "I dooo not knowww. I jussst ammm, therrre isss noo powwerrrr…"

  "Okay. Well, it takes as long as it takes. We just have to hold on…or kill Landaine." Dania rolled her shoulders back and took a two-handed grip on the unfortunate security guard's gun. She blew out her breath and started to step forward to try and find a good vantage point from which to shoot, when an ursine bellow cut through the space and a spiral of tawny light arrowed toward her chest.

  Dania froze, holding herself steady to keep from looking back at her Fossil Bloom and betraying its location. Her heart pounded for exactly three beats before the spiral of light returned and flowed to the ground next to her, rearing up into a slightly more decayed-looking version of her Short-Faced Bear. It looked at her, its eyes questioning.

  "Go," she told it. "Keep attacking!"

  The bear let out a chuffing noise and turned with a roar to charge at the snake.

  Now stay alive, Dania thought to it. Because you cost me zero power, and I'm going to need you for a good long while!

  Now that her bear's power had been returned to her, thanks to his death and resurrection via the Fossil Bloom, Dania looked at her cards with new intent. For once, the gods seemed to smile on her, because the card she wanted floated right in the center. And thanks to her Tar Pit, she had the additional "card in play" slot to utilize it.

  Sorry, Rhett! She touched her Polar Sanctuary card. Immediately, the temperature plummeted, and a cutting, biting wind whipped through the pillars, lifting Dania's hair away from her neck. Fat snowflakes began to fall, slowly at first and then faster and faster. The wind stirred them up and drove them sideways, obscuring Dania's vision until she could barely see the wall of green scales in front of her.

  Spurred by the memory of her battle with Rhett, an idea coalesced in her mind. Dania narrowed her eyes, and then tucked her gun into the empty holster that she still wore inside her waistband. Knight had taken her weapon when she'd been unconscious, but he'd left the holster alone. The security guard's pistol wasn't a perfect fit, but it would work.

  "Go keep Jake safe!" she shouted to Hush, and then took off at a run. She angled toward the Tar Pit and the serpent's tail, hoping to find a place where she could leap up onto the green coils. Sure enough, right at the edge of the pit, the snake's lowest coil jutted out beneath the higher one, creating a ledge.

  Dania gathered her mantle-boosted muscles and jumped like the great cat she resembled. She landed and flexed her claws into the smooth, scaled surface, digging in to avoid sliding back off.

  The snake's tail reared up behind her, swiping toward her position, and Dania flattened herself against the scales before starting to crawl along the slight ridge at the top of the great spine until she got to the next coil. Then she jumped again, utilizing her feline climbing skills to their maximum.

  A dark blur marred the white curtain in front of her, and before she knew it, Machairi crouched next to her.

  "Greetings, Guardian," he shouted over the howling gale. "It is fun to see you again!"

  Fun? "Get me to Landaine," she said, not quite shouting, because she didn't want to give her plan away.

  "I will do my best," Machairi said. He gave her his feral grin and began to run along the twisting, curving path of the serpent's body. Dania followed, staying right on his heels, even when her bear's anguished bellow floated up to her and the spiral of tawny light punched into her chest a second time.

  Fuck, I was hoping he'd last a little longer than that, Dania thought. But she didn't pause, or even slacken her pace. Instead, she pushed ahead, driving through the snow and the wind until she could see the outline of Landaine's shape ahead.

  An animalistic growl of satisfaction rumbled deep in her throat. She crouched, readying her body to spring—

  Pop! Pop Pop!

  Something punched Dania high in the chest, knocking her backwards onto her butt. She gasped as the air fled her lungs, chased by a pain so heavy and intense it felt like someone had hit her sternum with a sledgehammer. Her mouth opened as she tried to drag in a breath, but her lungs refused to function, leaving her gaping like a fish.

  "Ah, you're not the only deckbearer who can use a gun, my dear," Landaine said as he walked out of the snow toward her. Machairi, who had been reaching for Dania, sidled back, as if avoiding Landaine's notice. "Though you are certainly not the first to make that mistake. Indeed, 'the biggest mistake most deckbearers make is forgetting that there are other ways to hurt them besides their cards.' The young man who wrote that was surprisingly insightful, you know. Though perhaps it's not surprising. His cards were terrible, no offensive capabilities at all. In the end, of course, even his insight wasn't enough to stop me. For I—"

  "Am… a god?" Dania gasped. Landaine smiled beatifically.

  "Yes," he said. "Or near enough, anyway. Look at this beautiful creature of mine? Would anyone but a god have such power over something so magnificent?"

  For the rest of her life, Dania had no idea how she knew this, but all of a sudden, certainty filled every cell of her being. Keep him talking. Just a little longer.

  With a wrench, she dragged in a breath that spread agony from her chest throughout her body. She coughed, and a hundred invisible knives stabbed into her lung. Blood foamed up into her mouth, choking her, but Dania forced her head to the side and spat it out. She had to keep him talking. Just a little longer.

  "You…" she choked. "Are…crazy."

  Landaine sneered at her, raising the gun he held again. "You're not the first to say so," he said. "And yet, I am not the one coughing out my life's blood onto the emerald scales of my creature, am I?"

  "She…isn't…your…creature."

  Landaine's sneer widened and his eyes narrowed. A blotch of red color appeared high in each cheek. "She obeys me!" he hissed, taking another step toward Dania. "She knows her god!"

  "You're…just...an…ass…hole." Dania coughed again, and the crushing, stabbing pain pulled her body into a ball, forcing sparkles of light to dance before her eyes.

  "And you," he said lowly, savage pleasure ringing through the words, "are dead."

  "Not as much as you are," Machairi said in his eerie voice. Dania looked up through the snow and the sparkles to see Jake's companion slide to the side as the snake whipped her head around and buried her fangs into Landaine's back.

  Books 1 and 2 are now available in KU, and Please check it out and tell him I sent you!

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