I’m okay. Get up. Get up and finish this. Lord Machado’s ax had landed blade first just ahead of me and was embedded in the street. I put my hands down to push myself up, but nothing happened. Come on. Nobody likes a fucking quitter. Move. I got my right hand on the ground and struggled up. I realized what the problem was with the other, because it was hanging at a funny angle and there was a bone sticking out of my forearm, having poked right through my armor. Blood was leaking out around it. I stared at it with clinical detachment. That can’t be good.

I took two faltering steps toward the ax. But then the entire world was filled with the head of the great dragon Nachtmar. Its nostrils, each big enough to put my head inside, stopped mere inches above my head. Its mouth was open before me, like I could ride an escalator up his tongue, but only if I hopped over the picket fence of teeth. Blood slime was pouring out of the dragon’s nostrils, leaking from one ruined eye, and splattering around me like rain. “Well…shit.”

Bullets were still striking the beast, sounding almost like a hard rain on a metal roof, but for that split second it was just me and the Nachtmar, all alone in the world. Time dilated down until the instant was an eternity. He’d come to take me, to steal my destiny, to remake our world in his nightmare image, and as that mouth opened around me, I came to the terrible realization that he didn’t mean to possess me; he meant to consume me. He wanted to be one all right, but now the Nachtmar would be the host. I would live forever in his guts.

But then someone blew a hole through the top of the dragon’s head big enough to see the stars through.

I was washed away in a sudden burst of slime, sent spiraling out of control down the street. The Nachtmar rose, spraying glowing fluid in every direction as another colossal hit ripped through its back and out its chest. I saw the flash that time. It had come from out of the sky. There was a helicopter turned sideways, hovering over the conference center.

Looks like Franks got his air support. But then I recognized the familiar, odd, bulbous shape of MHI’s MI-24 Hind. That wasn’t MCB air support. That was my wife hanging out the side of a helicopter with a free sample 20mm cannon.