There was a breeze. Then it was calm. Then another breeze. The dragon was flapping its way here, pissed off, on fire, and filled with a thousand years of nightmares that it really wanted to share. “Let’s go.” We had to get out of the open. The fastest way to do that was down the nearby car ramp. Every step was agonizing, but I limped and cringed along. Gretchen’s energy drink wasn’t helping much, but I could stop and whine about it when I wasn’t in imminent danger of getting squished. “Mosh is inside, downstairs.”

Ed just grunted. He didn’t care about the particulars. He just wanted the opportunity to stab a dragon. Tanya had no idea what a catch she’d made.

I got on the radio. “Come in, MCB. This is Owen Pitt with MHI. There is a dragon inbound toward the Taj parking garage. Repeat. Dragon. Anybody listening?” The ramp led down to the next level. It was darker here. The escaped nightmare fog clung to the floor, so thick that we couldn’t see our feet. The fog had no smell; it was simply moist and dense. However, the air smelled like oil smoke. Grant and Archer’s distraction had been nearby. Even if somebody was listening to the radio right now, I was probably the boy that cried wolf. “I say again, there’s a dragon about to land on the Taj parking garage. I’d recommend shooting it down. Stricken, if you can hear me, you’ll know I’m telling the truth real quick.”

There was nothing. Back in the real world, they might still be jamming, or they might have all been killed by the spilling of the nightmare world. Thinking of that…I looked toward the unseen floor. It reminded me of the glycerin fog of the nightclub where Green had got his foot sawed off. Would the Nachtmar stay in dragon form, or would it turn into something else and come at us sideways? Would it pick a new vision, or would it be too proud to give up the epic nightmare skin it was wearing?

There was a sudden roar and a crash as the dragon slammed into the concrete above us. That answered that question. The Nachtmar screamed its fury and filled the sky with an arc of fire. It illuminated the entire garage through the open sides. He probably didn’t realize he’d done me a favor, because the reflection made it easy for me to spot the enclosure that led to the casino. “Over there!”

Limping along, I tried to ignore the rumbling as the dragon shifted above. The jackhammer strikes that were making concrete flecks fall from above were its claws as it moved toward the ramp. Car alarms began going off, only to be silenced as the Nachtmar flicked the cars over the edge in annoyance.