"What have you done with Jandra?" Shay asked.
"I've evicted her," said Jazz. "My genie did a running back up of my memories while I was alive. I've overlaid these onto Jandra's synapses, onto the sections of her brain I altered on the moon to make her more receptive. The preprogrammed urge to rescue my genie in the event of my body's demise must have worked. I've prepped a few hundred girls over the centuries, but this is the first time I've ever actually lost a fight."
Shay knelt and reached for a long leather pouch beside his backpack. He drew out a weapon, taking an oddly long time to free it. It was obvious the kid hadn't watched many westerns. Jazz looked down the barrel of the flintlock as he stood, a bit perturbed that it existed. She'd worked diligently to keep the world gun-free.
"Get out of Jandra's body," said Shay, in a low, hissing voice as he clicked off the safety. "Get out or I'll blow you to hell."
Jazz shook her head. "Kid, you really need to work on your threats. I've just spent a month buried underground as a bodiless intelligence with a flaming sword burning big holes in my personality. What was left of my senses was all digital, meaning I felt the full chemical subtleties of being buried in soil composed of my own cremated remains. Hell would be a vacation after that. Besides, we both know you aren't going to shoot your girlfriend in the face."
"You aren't her," said Shay. The muscles in his face twitched, but his hands remained steady on the flintlock.
"Jandra isn't dead, only dormant. I might give her back eventually. To be honest, she feels a little short. I'm sure I have enough DNA in my hairbrush to grow a new me. So put the gun… gun… guh… uh…"
Jazz's neck twisted. Her tongue cramped, bunching into a hard knot near the back of her throat. Her left hand jerked forward spastically, fingers wide, as if grasping for a rope just out of reach. Her jaw began to move of its own accord as she exhaled, "Kiilll meee…"
Tears trickled onto Shay's cheeks as he closed his eyes and squeezed the trigger.
Jazz was knocked from her feet by the force of the lead balls smacking into her. They tore at the cotton blouse Jandra wore, but failed to penetrate the silver shell of nanites that coated her skin. She hit the ground hard. The impact silenced the spirit that had temporarily grabbed control of some of her muscles.
"Son of a bitch," she muttered as she sat up. Her ribs felt like they'd been hit with a hammer. "This is why I hate guns."
She rose on shaky legs. Her toes didn't feel right. Was something wrong? This was Jazz's first experience with putting her mind into a new body. The Atlanteans did it all the time. No doubt there was going to be a learning curve.
Shay was busy reloading. While she was confident the gun couldn't do any real damage, she wasn't in the mood to get knocked on her ass again.
"I honestly hadn't intended to kill you until now," said Jazz.
Shay walked backward as she approached, still reloading the gun. He was attempting to pull the ramrod free as Jazz lunged forward and grabbed the gun barrel. It was still hot from the previous firing, but nothing like flaming angel sword hot. Almost pleasant, in fact. She ripped the shotgun from his hands, grabbed him by the collar, pulled him to her face, and whispered, "It was sweet of you to reload. Now, it's my turn to see if bullets bounce off yoooooOOO!" She cried out as something sank its beak deep into her inner thigh. She staggered backward, dragging a heavy weight on her left leg. She looked down and found a twenty pound earth-dragon with its mouth clamped firmly onto her leg just beneath her crotch. The little beast hadn't pierced the nanite shell, but it had pinched several inches of skin, muscle, and nerves between its powerful beak.
She banged it on the head with the shotgun. "Get off me, you damn lizard!" The small beast growled and shook its head, refusing to let go. She hit it again, harder. Still it held on. When she tried to strike again her swing went wide and the shotgun flew from her grasp. Her mouth moved without her ordering it too. "Run Lizard! She'll kill you!"
Jazz grimaced and retook control of her mouth. Tears welled in her eyes; the dragon bite hurt like hell, and the beast showed no signs of letting go. She said, her voice quavering, "You should have listened to your mama."
With a thought, she electrified her nanite shell. Lizard flew back and rolled across the burnt ground. White smoke trailed from his open jaws. She studied the dent on her inner thigh, half expecting to find that the little devil had drawn blood. It hadn't, though it had torn away a fair-sized chunk of Jandra's pants and long-johns. The silver thigh that shone through danced with reflected flame.
She looked up in time to see Gabriel's sword coming straight for her neck. She ducked as the blade passed overhead, trailing an arc of fire. Shay grunted loudly and fought to maintain his balance after the missed blow. The way Shay held the blade revealed that he wasn't terribly experienced with sword-fighting. The way he was standing so out of balance hinted he wasn't experienced at any sort of fighting, period.
Jazz straightened up before he could attack again with a backstroke. She raised her leg with all the power that her newly-youthful muscles could summon, planting the boniest part of her knee right into Shay's testicles. The young man's eyes bulged and the sword flew from his fingers. He dropped to his knees before her, unable to breathe.
She grabbed him by the hair. He had a skinny neck. Would Jandra's body be sufficient to break it? She grabbed his chin and the back of his skull and decided to give it a test.
Shay spoiled the moment by vomiting. A pale, fishy soup splashed all over Jazz's belly. Jazz jumped backward, wrinkling her nose. "Ewwww!"
She stared down at her ruined clothes and snapped her fingers, willing the fibers to disintegrate. Jandra's clothes fluttered away into dust. Except for black leather boots, Jazz was now wearing only the nanite shell. It flattered her. She looked at herself in the mirror of her inner arm. She would have been the heartthrob of any teenage sci-fi geek, if they all hadn't died off a thousand years ago.
She glanced up at Shay, who crawled across the ground toward the fallen sword.
"What, you aren't even going to gawk at me?" Jazz asked. "I'm practically naked and you're more interested in the sword? What's wrong with you?"
Shay's fingers closed around the hilt. "I've seen Jandra naked. She was beautiful. You're an abomination!"
Jazz snickered. "This sweet talk is doing nothing to delay your violent death."
Jazz stepped toward him. He pulled himself to his knees. A shadow fell across his face, a trick of the light that made it seem as if he knew death was approaching.
Except the shadow wasn't a trick of the light. There was a sound like a flag snapping in the wind and a powerful downdraft sent black ash swirling in all directions. Jazz looked up and found a familiar sun-dragon swooping toward her, his wings spread into parachutes, his long jaws open wide with twin rows of teeth aimed straight at her head.
"You again?" she said, or started to say as the jaws snapped down. She clenched her teeth and concentrated on her nanite shell to resist the impact and pressure of the bite. The teeth slammed into her ribs with a force greater than the shotgun pellets. Her face flattened up against the dragon's broad, hot tongue. His thick saliva smooshed through a gap in her lips, gagging her with the taste of some long dead mammal that still haunted his breath.
She turned her head and spat. "Gross!" She electrified her nanite shell. The stench of frying tongue was added to the unpleasant mix washing into her nostrils. Unfortunately, the sun-dragon proved a tougher opponent than Lizard. The brute refused to open his jaws. Instead, he jerked Jazz from her feet with a growl that nearly deafened her, given her proximity to his vocal chords. She was swung through the air until an abrupt collision with the hard-packed ground numbed her from the waist down.