Our pilot did. Angry rotor spirits be damned, we were not putting down with that thing heading our way. There was a sudden surge of power and we were moving forward just as the now-released mists of the nightmare world came spilling through the street below, engulfing the quarantine and swallowing the soldiers. I couldn’t tell if they were consumed or simply hidden from view, but then we were barreling down the Strip in front of a tsunami of nightmare fog.

The dragon was now above and behind us. It was the color of the night sky, and only random reflectivity from the city lights marked its presence as it tore through the air. Then it was behind us and I could no longer see it, but I could sense the flapping. Something that big and unaerodynamic didn’t fly. It beat the air into submission, and every concussive strike of those membranous wings shook the world. “Can we outrun it?”

“Skip get away.” Suddenly, the world around us turned to scarlet. Fire licked the glass. The chopper screamed as Skippy pointed us straight up. “Fire!” The color turned back to black, and we were free. However, the strain on the chopper had made something worse, and now the vibration was trying to remove the fillings from my teeth. That had changed Skippy’s opinion too. “Never mind.”

“The son of a bitch breathes fire too!”

“It’s a dragon. Did you expect flowers? Skippy, try to shake him between the taller buildings.” Julie got out of her seat, then clipped one of the bungee cords attached to the ceiling to a carabineer on her armor to keep her from falling out. She checked her rifle. She was thinking the same thing I was.

“This asshole wants to dogfight, he’s got himself a dogfight.” I grabbed another one of the cords. Abomination was a short-range weapon, but the case for Milo’s machine gun was still secured under Ed’s seat. I signaled him to get it out. I took the case and opened it up. Ed pulled a belt out of the ammo can. There was only one left. Which was enough to solve most problems, but I didn’t know if a .308 would even put a dent in a monster that big.

Julie was way ahead of me. “Skippy, try to maneuver around him. When you can, head back toward the fed’s quarantine. They’re bound to have something big enough to shoot a dragon down.”

But the pillar of smoke had collapsed and was flooding outward into the city, seemingly heavier than air. “Assuming they can see through the fog.”

“Or that they didn’t all get sucked into the nightmare world already,” Julie answered. “You got a better idea?”

“Trying…” It was taking all of Skippy’s mad skills to keep our damaged bird in the air, and now we were asking him to play high-speed tag between a bunch of casinos.