Lothar moved on instinct.

  The first barrier snapped into place around them, a tight ring. Not pretty, not glowing, just an invisible wall that made bullets veer off and chew into the sign and asphalt instead. He raised a second layer over the first, thinner and weaker, built for a different purpose.

  To count them.

  He closed his eyes for a heartbeat, and the street turned into a map. Heat signatures. Motion. Empty gaps between walls.

  Ten.

  Only ten.

  He pushed the image to Wilt Norcutt, not with words but with a clean mental picture. The building. The bodies inside it. Points on a grid.

  Wilt read it instantly. A quick smirk tugged at her mouth. With numbers like that, this would not be hard. Street trash.

  She swept her gaze over the bar, the tall tables, the angles. Then she found them without looking. Not with hands, not with eyes. A needlepoint slipping into ten minds at once.

  Two of them were loose. Thoughts fraying. Saliva thick in the mouth. A tremor in the body.

  High.

  The softest targets.

  Wilt did not waste time.

  She hit them like a hawk hitting chicks.

  They could not resist. Their fingers jerked. Their muzzles swung. They shot their own in the back.

  Two gunmen dropped without understanding what had happened. Two more beside them managed to turn and took the next burst before they could even raise a question.

  Then the pair Wilt was holding broke into motion and blundered straight into the line of fire. They were cut down almost instantly.

  Six out of ten in half a minute.

  The last four did not play heroes. They fell back fast and smart, tossing smoke and retreating toward their cars. Engines lit. Tires screamed. They were gone without bothering to finish the job.

  Silence came back hard, like someone had killed the sound.

  Norman Illget stood by his car and watched the street. He was not shaking. In his eyes there was irritation, not fear. He did not like people doing business in front of him.

  Norcutt came closer.

  “What was that,” she asked. “Were they trying to take you out.”

  Norman grimaced.

  “No. Not on my turf.” He nodded toward where the cars had vanished. “Soft warning. Ten minutes and we leave. After that it gets worse.”

  Tomos spat to the side.

  “Nice hospitality.”

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  Norman did not answer. He was already heading for the bar.

  Inside, it was cramped and loud, but the music felt wrong, like it had been chosen to drown conversations on purpose. People stared into their glasses and avoided the door. The bartender wiped the counter with the focus of a man trying to erase blood with a towel.

  Norman stepped up to the bar.

  “Seen Adam Graf,” he asked, flat, no threat in the tone, yet the bartender understood it was not really a question.

  The bartender lifted his eyes. He was about to answer when a voice came from the back of the room.

  “I’m here, Norman.”

  The voice was calm. Almost amused.

  Adam stepped out of the shadows.

  He looked good. Full strength, at least on the surface. His stride was easy, confident. His eyes were bright and friendly, as if the room belonged to him.

  “Old friend,” Graf said, like he had just dropped in for a drink. “How’s life. Happiest day of my life, seeing familiar faces again.”

  Lothar tensed instantly. His fingers curled on their own. Something inside him tugged at the chains.

  And from deep down, from the place he tried not to listen to, came a growl.

  Happy. Hungry.

  Lóng Tiānyán.

  It did not want a fight.

  It wanted Graf’s body.

  Adam turned his head and looked straight at Lothar. Not at Wilt. Not at Norman. At the boy.

  And Lothar felt the world drop away.

  Like someone had grabbed the back of his skull and shoved him inward.

  He was there again, inside himself, in the depth where there were no walls, only chains.

  The Azure Dragon stood before him. Vast. Beautiful. Terrifying. Its eyes were yellow, like metal in a furnace.

  And beside it, Adam was there too. Not flesh, but presence.

  Like poison that could speak.

  “You couldn’t hold him,” Graf said calmly. “No surprise.”

  The dragon roared.

  “You’re mine. I’ll take your body, human.”

  Chains snapped out of Adam’s hands.

  Not the old ones.

  Different.

  Heavy. Dirty. Alien.

  They slammed into the dragon, wrapped around it, and cinched so tight the air itself seemed to compress.

  Adam did not stop.

  A fortress began to grow around Lóng Tiānyán.

  Not stone. Not iron.

  Built out of meaning. Will. Alien rules.

  Walls rose. Towers locked into place. Grates slammed shut. A cage built directly into a soul.

  The Azure Dragon was trapped inside that cursed keep.

  Adam stepped closer and spoke softly, almost kindly.

  “Now he won’t break out. But remember, young man. I built this fortress. If I want to, I can tear it down with a snap.”

  Lothar tried to scream.

  He could not.

  He only felt cold spreading through him.

  Then another blow.

  He was back in the bar.

  His body did not obey. His legs folded and he hit the floor. There was not enough air. A stone in his chest. He gulped at breath like a drowning man.

  Wilt moved fast and dropped beside him.

  “Breathe,” she said. “Look at me. Breathe.”

  Her voice sounded far away.

  Lothar forced his gaze up and saw Adam.

  Adam stood straight, but it showed. He was pale, on the edge of blacking out. His hands shook slightly.

  He had spent too much power.

  Far too much.

  It meant one thing.

  Lóng Tiānyán was a real threat.

  Even for Adam.

  Inside Lothar, the growl returned, no longer delighted.

  This cage won’t hold me.

  Adam’s mouth tilted at one corner. Out loud, he addressed Wilt.

  “Of course it won’t. But it will be harder for you to kill me now.”

  Wilt looked at him with steady calm.

  “Why so pale,” she said. “Can’t carry it.”

  Adam narrowed his eyes.

  “You’re cruel as ever.” He nodded at Lothar. “You let your young apprentice suffer so I’d burn more strength. Nice strategy, Mentor.”

  “You chose this road,” Wilt said.

  “I chose power,” Adam replied. “And I’m stronger than you. The Nest taught me more secrets.”

  Adam stepped closer.

  “The boy won’t fight for a while. And one on one, even like this, I can kill you.”

  “So you came to kill me,” Wilt asked.

  Adam smiled, no warmth in it.

  “You came here to die. All right then. No reason to delay what can be done now.”

  Wilt inclined her head slightly.

  “You really think I came unprepared. You insult me, student.”

  She did not shout. She spoke like she was giving an ordinary order.

  “Coop. Put him down.”

  A shot cracked from the side.

  Then came the roar of plasma.

  The bolt streaked straight at Adam.

  Adam wrapped himself in aura at the last moment, a dragon’s tail dense as a shield. Plasma hit it and tore it to pieces. Adam staggered, but stayed standing.

  Lothar, still on the floor, turned his head.

  And saw who had fired.

  A three-meter silhouette in armor that looked almost restored. Heavy steps. A weapon held like an extension of the body.

  Coop Bevin.

  “But how,” Lothar breathed, recognizing him.

  And the moment snapped off there.