CHAPTER 20

  Trapped and Betrayed

  Greble smiled in satisfaction. The military transport she flew in had an excellent outside camera which, along with her senses, allowed her to quickly assess the status of the battle.

  She had become adept at controlling live human puppets as well as dead ones. Capture of the transport plane carrying the Chosen One named Mary and her human companions had been ordered by that fool Jerrod. The attack by the humans on themselves came soon after the plane landed in Cairo. The paralyzing gas acted so quickly that not even the girl Chosen was able to resist or call out to the boy Chosen or his dragon.

  Minutes later, Greble easily overcame Jerrod’s security forces. She could have simply controlled them, but she amused herself by terrifying them and destroying most of them. To do so she animated several dead bodies that continued to attack Jerrod’s remaining operatives even after they were cut to bits by gunfire. The degree of resulting fear and terror in the remaining victims was delicious indeed, when she finally did consume their souls.

  She had taken control of the two fighter aircraft shortly after they rendezvoused with the transport. It had been easy to have them bomb KraKara with nuclear weapons. The monster of course easily absorbed the blasts. As a result, the juvenile dragon and its partner were now more overmatched than ever!

  She hadn’t been able to control KraKara but the dragon and elf warrior had wasted much of their strength in attempting to slow the giant monster. As a result, the bird attack she had orchestrated had been highly successful. The birds were relatively primitive and weak-willed, and manipulating them to follow her south from Europe and attack her enemies was easy.

  The results were even better than she had imagined. The birds battered and further weakened the dragon duo. Now even as she watched, a triple-sized KraKara tentacle reached towards the prone bodies of the dragon and his Chosen, who were too weak to escape. Absorbing them could take hours, but the monster would eventually leach all power from the pair and consume them completely.

  "ONE MUST ESCAPE!" came as a clear message from her black-ring Talisman.

  "What?" Greble asked, startled.

  "REMEMBER THAT THE DARK ONE MUST HAVE THE DRAGON FOR HIMSELF!" added the Talisman. "THE CHOSEN IS