She never afterwards knew whether it was chance or her unconscious design that twisted the club as the dragon came at her, wedging the club between the top and bottom of the monster's mouth and holding it there so the jaws couldn't snap closed. The snout of the creature rammed into Kira's chest, knocking her against the wall behind her, the front teeth gleaming before her face, her arms stuck more than halfway into the dragon's maw as it fought to close despite the club jammed between its lower and upper jaws. The monster flailed at her, its foreclaws digging into and through her coat, as Kira, terrified, pulled her trigger as fast as possible, emptying her pistol into the dragon's mouth, some portion of her still capable of thinking well enough to try to aim the shots upward toward the creature's brain. The beast's armored scales and its thick skull, which would have kept the bullets from penetrating from the outside, instead kept them from exiting, so that they ricocheted wildly, doing even more damage.

The dragon jolted with the impacts, a high-pitched scream driving foul breath and the exhaust from her pistol shots across Kira. Then it abruptly broke away, falling backwards. Kira let the club go, hanging onto her pistol through instinct rather than design. She stayed leaning against the wall, shaking so badly with reaction that she wasn't sure she could stand.

The dragon lurched back and forth on the street, wobbling on its feet. It fell, limbs flailing and its tail sweeping wildly, the motions growing slower until they abruptly ceased.

Kira realized that she was staring at her hands, trying to reassure herself that they were still there and not inside the monster. She saw punctures in the shoulders of her coat where the dragon's teeth had penetrated but not been able to close enough to bite. The arms of the coat had been slashed where the teeth had caught when the creature was falling away. The front was torn to shreds, her chest and stomach stinging in places.

"You killed it."

She tore her eyes from herself to see one of the police officers staring at her.

"She killed it!" someone else yelled.

A lot of people were staring at her.

There was no sign of the Dragon Mage.

Kira jerked away from the wall as Jason staggered up to her. "Are you all right?" she asked. "Run."

People who had been fleeing had begun turning to run back and see the fallen dragon. Kira and Jason plowed into the gathering crowd, ignoring cries of "Hey!" and "Wait!" They broke through as people milled about on the edges of the crowd, running down the nearest alley. Kira shoved her pistol back into its holster, then pulled off her badly damaged coat as she ran, tossing it into a trash bin as they passed it.

"You're bleeding!" Jason cried as he yanked off his coat and passed it to Kira.