The sound was deafening. “Dragon! It’s the dragon!” I shouted. Of course it was the dragon form. It was the greatest nightmare the Nachtmar had found so far, and once he’d gone through the work of ripping it out of Management’s head, he wasn’t going to waste it. A mountain rose in the middle of the Strip. The road lifted, breaking. Cars rolled down the side. Pipes broke and sprayed. It got bigger, and bigger, and bigger, the Nachtmar lifting itself on its hind legs, wings wrapped around its body, and when it suddenly flung them outward we were in a world of hurt.

Several of us shouted for everyone to get down, but the air was instantly filled with debris. Tons of rock and dirt were launched in every direction. Men screamed and died, impaled on bits of rebar or smashed beneath flipping cars. Mosh, Holly, and I were behind a fire truck that took most of the hit.

The air was filled with choking dust. Holly leaned around the back of the truck and began popping off shots. There was a horrendous noise to the side as one of the MCB fired some sort of antitank rocket. Fire streaked across the sky and terminated against the dragon’s wing. The explosion was terrible, sending the gigantic beast reeling to the side. All of us were peppered with a fine mist of nightmare slime. A few optimists cheered.

The dragon responded by opening its jaws and engulfing that entire area in fire. The section where the rocket had come from was consumed. Gas tanks cooked off in the surrounding cars, causing a chain reaction of explosions.

I had to get close. Slugging it out at range would only cost lives. “Stay here,” I ordered Mosh, then I took off into the dust.

Running, heedless of the pain shooting up my leg, I scrambled over obstacles. The dragon was still pulling itself out of the earth. The entire world turned red as a gout of fire erupted overhead. The heat scalded me. The dragon lowered its head and burned a path down the Strip. I slid across the hood of a police car and took cover behind the safety of some upturned asphalt.

So hot. The fire struck twenty feet away and immediately melted the asphalt into a circular puddle. Another nearby gas tank ignited and ruptured. As soon as the sweeping fire passed, I got up and ran again, trying to get closer. Moving Abomination’s selector to full auto, I cranked off a magazine as I approached, not slowing, not even bothering to aim. The dragon was so big I couldn’t miss, but it was like mosquito bites on a rhino. I dropped the mag and rocked in another one full of slugs.