The demons at rainbow br.., p.1
Dragon Conjurer 5, page 1
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Chapter 1
“Ugh,” Nick groaned as we waded into the dense, swampy edges of the marshland just south of New Orleans. “This swamp smells like rotting fish.”
“Well, at least AIMM gave us the right footwear for tramping through the bayou.” Nala shrugged and glanced down at the thigh-high rubber boots that hugged her toned legs in all the right places. There was a distracting strip of mocha skin between the tops of her boots and the hem of her very short shorts, and a tan shirt hugged tight over her perfect breasts.
“Come on,” I instructed my team. “We’re going to have to go further into the swamp to find this thing.”
The swamp water was thick with mud that had already caked on our feet, and tall cypress trees that were as thick as refrigerators rose up out of the murky water. Long fuzzy-looking vines hung from every available branch, and they tangled the trees together in a knotted mess of greenery.
AIMM had dispatched my team on a mission to the coast of Louisiana to capture a monster that had been terrorizing the locals. Their domesticated goat population had been hit hard by something, and even a few children had gone missing in the last several days.
The locals hadn’t been terribly helpful in our search so far, and most of the people we’d talked to suspected some alligators had gotten ballsy, or maybe desperate, and wandered further from the bayou than they normally would have. A mysterious old woman who lived on the edge of town had sworn up and down that it was a monster who had eaten her goats and taken the missing children. Her house had given me very voodooish vibes, and there had been small animal skulls and all kinds of dried plants hanging from her front porch.
“It’s the Rougarou,” the woman had explained in a raspy voice as she pointed one boney finger with a thick gold ring toward the swamps.
At that point, we knew we were on the right track. A Rougarou fit the description AIMM had given us in our mission brief, and the legends of the swamp werewolves were common to this area of the country.
“That old voodoo woman whose goats had been torn to bits said the tracks lead out this way,” Steffi said as she spread her golden dragonfly wings and fluttered into the air. “I think we’re probably getting close.”
“Do you think there will be more than one?” Elisabeth asked as she transformed her ears into the elongated and sensitive ears of a fruit bat, and she cocked her head to the side to listen for our target.
“Maybe,” I whispered. “Do you hear anything?”
“Non.” The French girl shook her head, and her long red braid danced over her shoulder with the movement.
“Damn,” I muttered. It had taken us more time than we’d planned on to make our way through the thick foliage and foot-sucking muck. We would soon lose the daylight. “Nick, scout ahead a little, see if you can spot anything that’ll lead us in the right direction.”
“Sure thing, boss,” the blond nymph said. Then he quickly disappeared into the reeds at his feet, and he bounced from one plant to the next in search of the Rougarou.
“Are you going to summon the dragons now?” Steffi asked as she tried in vain to pull her feet from the sinking mud.
“Yeah, I was waiting until we got closer so they didn’t draw too much attention.” I popped the top button on my plaid shirt so I could see the top of Beyblade where he rested on my chest. “Exokyzo, Bianxifa, Sokisaseru, Trylle frem.”
My four dragons appeared around us with flashes of light.
Ky had grown immensely since I’d first summoned him nearly two months ago, and his huge nostrils puffed cold air as he breathed. Beyblade slithered low beside him, and his scarlet red scales glinted in the late afternoon light. Goldie’s pearlescent scales took on an almost rainbowy hue as she appeared beside my male dragons, and the air crackled with the energy of the indigo lightning that rippled under Thor’s black scales.
“I found the fugly bastards,” Nick said as he suddenly appeared beside us. “There’s two of them about two hundred yards south of here.”
“Great work.” I nodded at the blond nymph and turned to the rest of my team as they awaited my orders. “The Rougarou is basically just a swamp werewolf, but instead of their curse being controlled by the moon, it’s a time sensitive thing. According to legend, the person is cursed by the Rougarou magic for one hundred and one days. Then the curse can pass on to a new host, like some kind of furry, fanged flu. AIMM wants us to capture one if we can, so let’s try to take them both out with the tranq darts first, and if those don’t work, Ky can use his ice breath to freeze them down in the mud.”
“I gotcha covered, dude.” Nick smirked and patted his dart gun as he smiled at Beyblade. “Come on, buddy.”
My fire dragon sauntered a step toward the nymph, crouched slightly, and allowed Nick to climb onto his back before he took off into the air.
“Goldie, you and Nala flank the beasts on the other side of Nick and Beyblade,” I instructed.
“Can do.” The dark-haired earth bender hopped onto my pearly white dragon and nodded.
“Steffi, you keep them distracted so they don’t try to run off,” I continued. “Elisabeth and I will come at them from the front.”
I’d barely had the chance to think about telling my ice dragon to come over before Ky knelt down low beside me and propped his front leg like a step ladder. I climbed up onto his back with pleasant surprise, and then I leaned over and reached an open hand down to Elisabeth.
“Sounds good to me,” the redheaded French girl said.
Then Elisabeth squeezed my hand as she climbed up behind me on my ice dragon, and as soon as she was settled, we flew off in the direction Nick had indicated a moment ago.
Steffi fluttered alongside us, and her wings let off a soft humming sound while she scanned her surroundings and left a trail of fairy dust behind.
“This should be easy,” I said into the comms. “But keep your wits, we don’t know if there’s more than just the two of them hanging around, or what else we might find in this thick ass bayou.”
“Yeah, don’t get cocky.” The blond dude smirked as he held his dart gun up and chuckled at his own Star Wars reference.
“Alright, there, Solo.” I smiled as I glanced over my shoulder at Elisabeth behind me. “Do you hear anything yet?”
“Yes, the Rougarou are that way,” El murmured and pointed down and to our right. “I can hear both of the Rougarou, but I also hear something more.”
“What do you hear, El?” Nala asked from her spot on Goldie’s back. “I can’t feel anything through the earth while we’re flying.”
“Blind just like Toph,” Nick chuckled again.
“I’m not exactly sure,” the French girl replied, and I shifted on Ky’s back to see her change her ears to that of a cat instead.
The soft little triangle-shaped ears twitched around in an adorable way, and Elisabeth frowned in thought.
“It is difficult to tell exactly what is over there,” El said. “But there are several of them. They are chattering amongst themselves, and they do not seem pleased with one another.”
“All these trees are going to make it harder for the dragons to get any good shots in,” Steffi said as pixie dust fluttered down from her golden wings.
I was about to reply, but then something hideous came into view between the vine-covered cypress trees.
They could only be the Rougarou.
The two monsters stood hunched over on two legs, and while thick muscles wrapped their legs and arms, their torsos looked skeletally thin. The ridges of their rib cages and vertebrae rose up through their leathery skin, and they had long, pointed ears that stuck up from the sides of their wolf-like heads. Their eyes glowed red in the dim light of the setting sun, their arms hung so low, their knuckles almost brushed the water where it rippled around their boney knees. Coarse black fur sprang up in uneven tufts all along their bodies, and it gathered in thick lines around their necks and down their spines. They had short snouts and huge black noses above a mouthful of sharp fangs, and long strings of drool dangled from their black tongues.
“Oh, those fuckers are ugly,” I said as I kept my blue dragon hovering back above the trees.
“The drool…” Steffi groaned.
The two Rougarou stood facing each other, and they looked like they were talking while low growls emanated occasionally from their throats. I thought I almost caught a grumbled word or two, but then a flurry of movement all around them suddenly drew my attention.
A dozen or so little dwarf-sized creatures mingled around the legs of the Rougarou. They were humanoid in shape, with two arms, two legs, and a head, but they looked more like badly mutated dwarves than anything else, almost as if they’d suffered from generations of inbreeding. Their severely curved spines and bulbous skulls reminded me of the deformed hunchback in 300, and dirty leather scraps were draped over their short bodies as they bickered noisily with one another. They were filthy with mud smeared over their pale-white skin and silvery hair, and their eyes were the disturbing pink color of albino rats.
“Wh
“They look like something I read about in one of my folklore classes at Berkeley,” I said. “Something my professor called the ‘Grunch.’ They supposedly eat goats and children, kind of like a Chupacabra. He said they were supposed to be inbred little beasts.”
“Well, the inbreeders have spotted us,” Nick declared. “And I swear to god, I can hear banjo music playing.”
I whipped my head back around to the group, and sure enough, the monsters’ eyes were all trained on us.
The Rougarou started to growl and snarl while drool seeped from their fangs, and the Grunch all screeched as they scurried around.
Then several of the little albino creatures pulled out what looked like blowguns and took aim at Steffi as she circled in the air above them.
The Grunch had weapons.
“Shit!” I growled.
The little inbred beasts put their ugly gray lips up to the ends of their blowguns and fired several fuzzy-tipped darts at the fairy-girl.
“Woah!” Steffi formed a ball of glittering energy and spread it out thin like a shield between herself and the Grunch.
The hunchbacked dwarves must have been more intelligent than I’d thought, and they huddled in a short V formation and took turns as they rotated through and fired their darts up at Steffi. I noticed they never took a shot at any of my dragons, though, and I figured they probably were smart enough to know that would only manage to piss off my elemental companions.
“Nala,” I called through the comms. “Can you trap those little guys in a sinkhole? I’d like to try and catch some to bring back to AIMM with us.”
“I’m on it.” Nala smiled and lifted her hands as Goldie descended lower toward the group of monsters.
“Steffi, keep them distracted while Nala gets to work,” I instructed my cotton-candy fairy-girl.
“Mmhmm.” Steffi nodded once and then started jetting around.
Ky rumbled with frustration below me, and I knew the tall cypress trees were probably the cause of his irritation. The canopy was so thick and covered in such a tangled web of vines that there was no way Ky could get close enough to the Rougarou to make any real impact.
“I know, buddy,” I said and patted the blue dragon. “Let’s see what the others can do about this, though.”
I glanced over at Beyblade and Nick and saw that my fire dragon was having the same issue. He wove back and forth above the tops of the canopy, and his mouth was pulled back in a snarl of irritation.
“Nick, can you get a shot through the trees with your tranq darts?” I asked. “Or do you need to get down there in the plants?”
“I’d rather not head down with all those fucking darts flying around,” the nymph answered. “I think I see an opening in the trees not too far off, though.”
“Roger that,” I replied.
The blond nymph sailed to the right on Beyblade, and then he aimed his dart gun through a gap in the canopy where several dead limbs had broken off. It looked like he had a window-sized hole down to the Rougarou in the bayou, but he held off on firing because Steffi was hard at work down there.
My fairy-girl flitted around above the swamp werewolves’ heads with her wings glowing a bright gold, and she drew the attention of the albino Grunch as they continued to fire possibly-poisoned darts at her. She threw a few pixie energy balls around her shield at the little monsters, too, and every blast helped to keep them from scattering off in all directions.
“Nala, how’s it going on containing those guys?” I checked.
“The ground is so muddy and slick,” Nala huffed as she shifted the earth below.
I glanced over at my dark-haired lover and saw her brow furrowed in concentration. After another moment of focus so intense that sweat started to bead on her dark forehead, the ground started to sink and create a crater. A few of the Grunch stumbled into the deep hole as it spread out under their feet, but the rest of the group managed to scurry away.
“Goldie--” I began, but before I even got my order out, my wind dragon was already obeying me.
My pearly, white-and-gold dragon dove as low over the canopy as she could reach, and she blasted a forceful stream of air straight at the remaining Grunch. The rush of air was enough to knock them off their grubby little feet and backward into the sinkhole with their friends.
“Steffi, fall back,” I ordered.
“Already on it!” the fairy-girl chirped.
“Great,” I said. “Nick, it’s all you. Show those Rougarou what you’ve got.”
“Yes, sir!” the nymph hollered.
Elisabeth and I sat on Ky as we watched Nick adjust his aim through his window in the canopy, and then he fired a dart toward each of their leanly muscled backs.
Just before the darts hit their marks, the Rougarou growled and launched themselves out of the way. They jumped like grasshoppers and were suddenly seven or eight yards away from where they had just stood a second before.
“Damn,” I murmured. “Nala, suck their feet down in the muck.”
“Got it,” the petite girl called.
“Nick, come at them again from the back,” I ordered.
“Yep.” My best friend nodded as he reloaded his tranq gun. Then he leaned lower over Beyblade’s long neck as the dragon turned to come back around again from a different angle.
While Nick got into position, Nala lifted her hands, and I could see the Rougarou sink further into the thick muck around their high ankles.
The werewolves growled and bared their fangs at Nala while the blond nymph and Beyblade came up behind them, and he shot two more darts at the Rougarous’ backs. This time, the monsters’ feet were secured firmly in place, and the tranquilizers pierced into their thick hides.
For a moment I thought we would have to sink a few more rounds into them, or even figure out a plan B, but then I saw their bright red eyes start to roll back in their heads. Then the Rougarous succumbed to the tranquilizers, the muddy water around them splashed as they collapsed into the swamp.
“Great shot, kid.” I smirked at my best friend across the canopy.
“Thanks, Solo,” Nick joked back with a smile. “Nice one, by the way.”
“Nala,” I called out to my ebony-haired lover, and I pointed at the Grunch where they rammed angrily into the solid walls of mud around them. “Pull a few of those ugly little bastards aside so we can capture them and then crush the rest.”
“Okay, Dyl.” Nala shot me a quick smile and then shifted her hands to wedge a wall of mud between three of the Grunch and the rest of their group. Then she sank the larger group further into the mud and crashed a ton of wet earth down on top of them.
The three remaining dwarves cried out with rage at the dark-skinned beauty, and they clawed with futility at the slick dirt that held them captive.
“Great job, team,” I called out as Ky started to descend to the bayou before I even had the chance to give him the order.
My dragons had started to follow my commands almost as quickly as I could think of them, and it made me wonder if eventually I wouldn’t have to speak to them at all during battles.
“That was almost too easy,” Nala laughed as she and Goldie landed in the marsh beside Ky.
“Nick,” I said. “Radio Silva and tell him to bring the chopper as close as he can, we’ve got some cargo for him.”
“Sure thing, man.” My best friend landed Beyblade beside the unconscious Rougarou and pulled the radio from his belt. “Silva, we’re ready for pick up…”
“Think we should tranq these guys, too, Dylan?” Steffi asked as she hovered just above the muck and peered down into the cage of earth that Nala had trapped the Grunch in.
“Yeah, it might make it easier to load them up,” Nala said.
“That’s a good idea.” I hopped down from Ky’s back and then held up my arms to help Elisabeth dismount my ice dragon.
“Silva’s on his way,” Nick said as he walked over to join us.
“Nick, do you think these guys can handle the tranq darts you have?” I asked and gestured to the albino dwarves in the sinkhole below us. “I don’t want to dose them so much that we kill them.”
“Yeah,” Nick replied. “I’ve got a lower dose here that should be perfect for these little underwear gnomes.”
