Myths and Gargoyles by Jamie Hawke (interesting books to read in english txt) 📕

The man paused at the door, looked back, and then gestured for the woman to hurry.

“You know they’ll come out shooting,” Ali Baba said.

“And then I won’t feel bad about killing them,” I replied, adrenaline taking over so that I genuinely wasn’t worried. All I could think of at the moment was getting that damn feather and returning to my team as fast as possible. “Where do you think it would be?”

He frowned, ran a hand along his beard, and then said, “Most of it, probably in the main room of the suite. Maybe they’ve started carting some of it out, but I had a lot of good stuff. They’re probably still trying to inventory it.”

“And… how much can you leave behind?”

He frowned. “I’m not leaving it in their hands.”

“I don’t see how you have much of a choice. We’re going to get what we can, including that feather, and then get out of here as fast as possible. If I can get away with as few deaths as possible, that would be great.”

He clucked his tongue, breathed heavily. “Then we blow it.”

“As in…?”

“I’ll get what I need, then light a fuse. I have plenty of magic that will result in an explosion. But you see two gold wrist cuffs, you give them to me.”

I frowned, nodded, and said, “Here goes,” indicating the line of men and women now visible through the window, guns aimed at us. “Stay behind me.”

He chuckled, kneeling and scratching with something on the cement under our feet. “Don’t you worry about me.”

I knelt and held up my forearm as the glass shattered, bullets coming in our direction. Many of them hit my shield, but the majority seemed to hit some sort of wind tunnel and be swept aside, and into the cement behind us, so that the area around the hot tub was peppered.

A glance over revealed Ali Baba grinning, the lines he’d drawn in the ground glowing. Seeing this, and realizing that’s where the change in direction of the bullets came from, I completely understood how lucky the enemy had been to catch him in the bath.

The first round of shots stopped, the enemy staring in confusion, and I charged, returning fire with the pistol and, when I was close enough, hitting them with a group strike from my sword. Already a handful or more were down, Ali Baba taking up the rear and pausing to scratch two new marks in the walls as he passed. More guards turned on us, but started firing wildly. I glanced back and stifled a laugh—whatever he’d just done must’ve been some sort of illusion ward, because it looked like there were fifty of us charging in there.

“We’re being overrun!” one of the men said into his comms, a moment before my sword cut him open. I spun and shot another who was about to shoot in Ali Baba’s direction, and the old man gave me a nod of gratitude.

“Make for the stash,” I said, and Ali Baba nodded, leaving me to take down three more guards on my way.

I did my thing with them and was halfway to the door he’d just opened, when he leaped back and a burst of flames exploded outward. Walls caught fire, corpses of fallen goons catching too, while Ali Baba rolled to put out a flame on his sleeve and then was quickly sketching more wards into the wall at his side.

My advance had come to a stop just short of the range of the fire, and now I wasn’t so sure I wanted to keep going. There had to be another way about this.

A heavy step sounded, a moment later this massive beast of a woman stepping through the doorway. While mostly human in her look, she wore flowing robes over her scaled, muscular body, and had the face of a yellow dragon.

Huh, the Dragon of the North was female. There was no doubt this was her. I don’t know why I thought otherwise, and wondered if Ali Baba had referred to her as a he.

When her eyes landed on me, she cocked her head, knelt, and prepared for another attack. Since something about the wards were letting Ali Baba sneak behind her in that moment, I figured me taking the attack, as long as I could survive it, made a lot of sense. At least until he could get what he needed.

But first, I thought I’d try another tactic.

“The legendary Dragon of the North,” I said, sounding very impressed.

She eyed me, closed her mouth, and then waited.

“I mean, to finally meet you in person, oh great Dragon. This is an honor.” I bowed, holding my sword out to the side as if it were more of a ceremonial piece. Meanwhile, flames rose up along the walls of the room, but I had to try and ignore that little fact.

“Protector,” she said in a raspy voice, smoke trailing out from her nostrils. “Will it stink when you burn? Being full of shit, and all.”

I laughed. “It’s not every day a sexy, beautiful fairy tale such as yourself has a sense of humor to boot.”

This time she laughed—a laugh that brought a small burst of flame. “Now you’re mocking me?”

“Not mocking. Hell, do you know how many ways I’d bend you backwards?”

“Isn’t there only one way to bend backwards?”

“See,” I said, stepping forward, putting on my best cool-guy look. It was a stretch, but I was feeling pretty confident with how buff I’d gotten lately. “That shows you how much you have to learn, and I’m here to teach you.”

Maybe it was my imagination, but I could’ve sworn her cheeks had turned orange—was she blushing?

With a sigh, she shook her head. “A shame I have to kill you, instead.”

“You’re… positive?”

She looked me up and down, her reptilian tongue darting out briefly, and then she nodded. “Maybe I’ll at least eat your flesh afterward. We can still join as one, just not in the way you had in mind.”

At that moment, I