Page 60 of Your Final Resting Place

That’s it . . . just a little closer.

Fire burned in my chest. Steam hissed from between my teeth.

I wasn’t just any dragon. I was the last.

I’d eaten all the rest.

I’d survived.

That had to mean something.

But I couldn’t do this alone.

Cain approached the part of the bridge where it spanned over an old Civil War fortress. There were cars in that parking lot, and two tiny specks of people.

And a beaten-up, rusty purple van.

Just a little bit closer.

Cain paused his marching.

No . . . keep coming . . .

Why had he stopped?

Cain’s lashing limbs reached down, toward the parking lot and the Love Wagon.

I unleashed a blast of flame, washing Cain in liquid fire. His mass stumbled, recoiled, and then flung those reaching, horrible harpoon limbs at me.

I steadied myself, expecting the worst. But with all his focus on me, whatever Zee planned it had to be now.

Now, do it now!

One, two, three—the harpoons punched into my chest. I gasped, choking on fire, and teetered on the tower. The bay tilted, the city lights flared.

No, I had to hold on. For them.

A needle-thin pillar of light shot up from the van. Just a little shaft of light in the dark tempest of Cain’s and my making. But as I watched, that little shaft of light struck at Cain’s mass, instantly rocking him sideways. Like his harpoons in me had done, that thin needle of light pierced deep, hooked in, and held on.

Cain swayed, and his enormous pulsing mass began to shrink as though that light had cracked him open. Or was siphoning his power . . .

I knew what it was . . .

I knew what they’d done.

The harvester had been in that van.

I clung to the tower, clung to consciousness, and inside, I smiled.

Gideon Cain’s night was about to be over.

It was a shame I wouldn’t be around to see it.

I slipped, and tried to make a grab for the tower, but my claws skittered down metal. I was already falling. The harpoons twanged free, reeling back into the flailing, shrinking Cain. My back struck the bridge deck, turning cars to crushed metal beneath me. The bridge bounced, its cables groaned.

If I was dying, I should probably have tried to die somewhere more convenient than in the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge. Traffic would be a nightmare for days.

But hey, I’d stopped the bad guy.