Firestorm

by William Stacey

  She felt eyes on her.

  "Who's there?" Her voice cut sharply through the garden.

  She stepped back and tripped over something, falling hard on her butt. A broken tombstone—she had tripped on a broken tombstone. Now she saw other tombstones all about her covered in weeds, overgrown with bushes. She was back in the graveyard at the base of the church. How—

  "I'm going to wake up now," she whispered. "I don't like this dream."

  "But is it truly your dream?" a sinuous male voice asked from behind.

  Angie scrambled to her feet, drawing back in fear. A young man stood only feet before her, short and thin with raven-dark hair curling before his eyes. He looked completely nonthreatening, but her every instinct screamed at her to run away. His lips were too red, his eyes too dark, his skin so pale he could have been a ghost. He wore dark pants and a black silk shirt with the sleeves rolled up. The shirt was unbuttoned almost to his navel. His dark eyes seemed to look right through her and shone with … hunger?

  He reminded her of someone, someone who terrified her.

  "Who are you?" Her heart hammered painfully, and she tried to move away, to run. But then she realized she couldn’t move a step, nor could she raise her arms or even look away from him. Her limbs were frozen, as if encased in ice. This wasn’t a dream but a nightmare.

  "I finally found you. I did need her help after all, and it took longer than I thought it would, but here we are, alone. Just you and I, my little bird. What shall we do together?"

  "What do you want?"

  He moved closer, not stepping but just appearing, as if he had merely thought himself closer. This wasn’t her dream, not any longer. It was his now, and she was helpless. He reached out a hand, his fingernails long and black, and trailed ice-cold fingertips over her face. She shivered at his touch.

  "I always find my prey." He grinned malevolently as he rested his palm against the skin of her chest, over her pounding heart.

  Angie whimpered in fear, her limbs trembling.

  He buried his nose in her neck, inhaling deeply. A hunger-filled look of rapture transformed his features. "What are you?" he whispered into her neck, his breath frigid. "You smell so different."

  "I ... I'm not afraid of you. I'm going to wake up."

  He chuckled then licked her neck. It was like being licked by a corpse, and she gasped, shivering. "I think you’ll stay. I think you’ll like what I’m going to do to you—at least at first." His fingers drifted over her body, over the thin material, trailing across her breasts. And to her shame, she became aroused despite her terror.

  Or maybe because of it.

  He ran his hands down over her hips and upper thighs, lifting the fabric away. She felt a sharp pain as one of his nails cut her hip, and she gasped. "Who ... what ... are you?" A cold sweat coated her, yet she burned with need at the same time. More Fey magic, she knew, but that didn’t make it any less real.

  He considered her with a lascivious smile. "Come now. You lived with Chararah Succubus and her foolish sister. You, better than anyone, should know what I am and why you can’t wake up."

  "No. You can't hurt me. This ... is ... a dream."

  "Oh, but I can hurt you. Just because it’s a dream doesn’t mean it isn’t real."

  She couldn’t even shake her head. Her eyes began to water in shame and frustration. "No ... Dream."

  He laughed. "Tell me, my little bird, what kind of creature hunts in dreams?"

  "You're a lamia," she whispered, tears running freely now.

  "Yes." He opened his mouth, exposing the small fangs. His eyes turned all black as he reared his head back, his mouth open to bite into her neck.

  But then fingers gripped his hair from behind, and someone wrenched him away from her, sent him flying back to fall against the ground. Angie staggered back, her limbs free once more.

  Ephix stood between them, a plain young woman in a toga who had long dark hair. The male lamia glared at her as he rose to his feet, his black eyes filled with rage. "You dare?"

  "You’ll find I dare much, Aernyx," Ephix said. "Touch her again and I will destroy you."

  Angie scurried back, putting as much room between them as possible.

  "You do not get to tell me what prey I take, Ephix. You have no power over me."

  "You will not touch her."

  The male lamia, Aernyx, laughed, an evil chuckle. "You can’t protect her every night. I’ll have her yet. And when my mistress comes for you, for your stupid little zoo, you’ll never interfere with me again."

  "You always were a snake, Aernyx. Why pretend any longer?"

  His body began to shift, to change, to grow. His limbs extended, dark fur and scales sprouted over his flesh, and his head twisted into a deformed hybrid of a snake and a man.

  Ephix glanced over her shoulder at Angie, her own body also changing into its beast form. "Flee, Angela!"

  Angie turned and bolted.

  She made it only steps before she realized she was no longer in the fog-enshrouded graveyard or elven garden but in thigh-high water in a dark pool in an underground cavern, the only light a golden glow coming from the depths of the pool, so strong it illuminated the cavern’s stalactite-covered ceiling above.

  I’m back in the Black Pool, Quetzalcoatl’s old lair.

  She didn’t know why she dreamed of the dead feathered serpent’s lair, but she had escaped the lamia.

  At first, she thought she was alone, but then she saw Tec before her, his back to her, the water up to his waist. He was naked, like her. He turned and met her gaze, a look of pure joy on his face. "It’s singing. Do you hear its song?"

  "What?"

  She didn’t hear anything, not a sound, but she did … feel something, a vibration that coursed through her. The vibration seemed to be coming from the water. The dragon-mark on her palm throbbed, and she cried out in wonder at the golden glow in the dark water. There was something in the water that—

  Angie bolted upright in the bed she shared with Tec, gasping for air.

  Tec, lying beside her, turned to face her. "Did you hear?"

  "What?" She couldn’t think properly. Just a dream, just a nightmare … not real. Then she heard the horns. Someone was blowing a horn—an alarm!

  Tec jumped from bed, quickly lit a candle, thrust clothing at her, and then began to dress. Now, she heard the palace awaken, heard the pounding footsteps and the clink of armor.

  "What's wrong?" she asked as she thrust her legs into her pants and began to pull them up around her hips.

  "I think the fighting has begun."

  She froze when her fingers touched blood on her hip from a small cut.

  The kind a razor-sharp fingernail might make.

  Chapter 15

  Angie followed Tec into the queen's throne room, now bustling with activity and excited conversation. Two guards stepped before them, blocking their path with their spears. Tec looked past them as if they weren't there. At least a hundred elves—advisers, servants, and warriors—crowded about the spacious throne room. Fairies and nymphs darted about, many flying as they delivered reports.

  "Prince Kilyn," Tec yelled, now seeing the elf among a group of warriors.

  The young man paused in his discussion and stared in surprise at Tec and Angie. "Let them in."

  Both guards snapped to attention, removing their spears. Tec and Angie strode past. The excitement died down for a moment upon their arrival but almost immediately resumed. Angie's glance took in the empty throne. Where was the queen?

  The elvish warriors attending Prince Kilyn stepped aside. Tec directed his attention to the prince. "What do we know?"

  "We?" the prince asked, one eyebrow raised.

  "To my immense surprise, I find I'm going to fight with you," Tec said dryly.

  "We are going to fight with you," Angie said, her hand on Tec's forearm.

  Tec met her eyes and smiled. "We're fighting with you."

  The elves watched them in silence, their faces like masks
. Then the prince flashed his perfect white teeth in a smile and placed one hand atop Tec’s shoulder and the other on Angie's. "And welcome you are."

  "How bad is it?" Angie asked.

  The prince's smile vanished. "Bad. At least five thousand Aztalan warriors are moving north through the ruins of Imperial Beach and making their way toward the Silver Strand."

  "How long do we have?" Tec asked.

  "Longer than the Aztalans may realize. We've been preparing to fight in the ruins of Imperial Beach for some time now. We’ll make them bleed for each foot, but we have less than two thousand warriors. Even for us, those are bad odds."

  "Worse than you think. They have firearms," Tec said. "They're much better armed than you realize."

  "Maybe not. My mother has been expecting this attack for some time now."

  "Don't underestimate your mages," Angie said. "You have some of the best in the world."

  "Never enough," the prince said.

  "What's your plan?" Tec asked. "If you can't hold them..."

  "I didn't say we couldn't hold them, just not forever. My sister and mother are mobilizing our people to flee north over the Bay Bridge."

  "To go where?" Angie asked.

  "Ephix Lamia has offered us sanctuary in the Fresno Enclave. We just need to hold the Aztalans long enough."

  But how long will they be safe in Fresno? Angie wondered. The Aztalans won't stop here.

  "You're fighting a delaying action then?" Tec asked.

  "We are. I'm about to go now to oversee the battle in the ruins of Imperial Beach."

  "Then we'll come with you," Tec said.

  Kilyn placed both hands atop Tec's shoulders and lowered his elongated egg-like skull until his forehead touched Tec's. "It will be an honor to fight alongside the Jaguar Knight." He duplicated the gesture with Angie. "And you as well, daughter of Chararah Succubus, mage of the Commonwealth."

  Her face warmed with the welcome, and she swallowed, trying to sound brave when she answered. "It’s our honor."

  At that moment, all conversation stopped as Queen Elenaril, dressed in her silver armor with a longsword on her hip, strode into the throne room, escorted by a squad of spear-armed Phoenix Guard warriors. The elves dropped to a knee, as did Angie and Tec. The queen stopped before Angie, her voice tired. "Please, rise. Rise, everyone. This is not the time for such things."

  Angie and the others rose and faced the queen.

  "Ephix Lamia has been in communication with me," the queen said simply to Angie.

  Angie didn’t ask how. Maybe by radio, maybe by magic. "I dreamed of her," she said. "And … another."

  The queen’s eyes were kind. "So Ephix has told me. Aernyx Lamia and his Night Kin are all traitors but no less dangerous. Ephix has asked that I offer you protection. I would do so even without her request. I apologize for the attack upon you while a guest in my home."

  "Attack?" asked Tec in surprise, looking from the queen to Angie. "What attack?"

  "The black dragon Itzpapalotl has, among her many other servants, a lamia, Aernyx Lamia. It was his vampires who attacked you. Now Aernyx hunts our Angela in her dreams, a most deadly foe."

  "Where?" Tec demanded, his posture going stiff, his face suddenly hard. "Tell me where to find this lamia."

  "I do not doubt your bravery, Jaguar Knight," the queen said. "But there is no need to risk your life—not yet, at any rate. I have this." She lifted a necklace she had been holding in her hand, dangling it by the silver chain. It was a red crystal the size of Angie’s thumb, carved to resemble a single rose, all the petals of one glass piece. Even from here, Angie felt magic resonate from it.

  "It’s beautiful," Angie said.

  "It’s yours," the queen answered, stepping forward and clasping it around Angie’s neck before she could say anything. "It’s a talisman, one of some few I’ve collected over the years. I dare say my collection might even match your mother’s. At any rate, this rose, the Adulation of Asura, will protect your dreams, keep you safe from the lamia. Never remove it. Aernyx will not stop hunting you, not until he’s dead."

  "I won’t," Angie whispered, running her fingers over the glass rose. "Thank you."

  "Now." The queen faced her son. "It’s time to make the Aztalans regret moving against us."

  With the afternoon sun high overhead, Angie crouched behind a crumbling three-foot stone wall and peered over its edge. The wall surrounded the parking lot of a large white building that had once been a Lutheran church in the heart of Imperial Beach but was now just another ruin. Tec knelt beside her with Prince Kilyn and one of his Phoenix Guard warriors. They watched the dozen Aztalan scouts three hundred meters away as they advanced on either side of the wide city street, once a main road in the city and now the center of the enemy’s axis of advance toward Coronado Island. It was along this route that the lead elements of an Aztalan brigade of five hundred men moved north. The scouts, unaware they were under observation, moved slowly, advancing with their rifles tight in their shoulders, scanning all about them. They were right to be concerned, Angie knew; they just didn’t appreciate how frightened they should have been.

  But they would find out soon enough.

  Imperial Beach, once a tightly congested urban sprawl, was silent under a bright-blue sky. Weeds and thick desert grass had sprouted in humanity's absence, but unlike Fresno, which was covered by a forest of green swamp, Imperial Beach remained the desert it had always been. The main street along which the Aztalan brigade advanced was partially blocked by the burned-out remains of cars, and the Aztalan scouts slowly moved around them. The elves had placed or moved many of those wrecks on purpose over the years, creating openings to funnel the invaders into preplanned kill zones. The scouts were leading the brigade exactly where the elves wanted them to.

  Two hundred meters ahead of Angie sat a UPS truck. Once bright white, it was now darkened by soot and rust. Angie thought there might have been a skeleton inside its cab. Surprisingly, the road itself remained in reasonably good shape, with its painted yellow line still visible despite the thigh-high brown weeds growing through the cracks. On either side of the main road sat tightly packed rows of suburban homes. The windows were all broken, the roofs caving in, and garbage lay everywhere, covered in a thick carpet of weeds. Many of the homes were blackened and burned, victims of the fires that had consumed the abandoned cities, yet some of the brick hacienda-style homes remained standing, even if their tiled roofs had long ago fallen in. There was a salty smell to the air from the Pacific Ocean only kilometers away to the west. When it was deathly quiet, as it was now, she could close her eyes and hear the waves crashing against the shore.

  Eighteen years after A-Day, Imperial Beach is a ghost town. Will anything remain in another eighteen years?

  And will any of us still be around to know?

  Tec reached over and touched her forearm. She turned to see Prince Kilyn and his guard slipping back the way they had come, moving around the end of the Lutheran church. Tec cocked his head, the meaning clear: time to go. She nodded, and he went first, keeping low and out of sight, and she followed. They trailed the two elves through side alleys and backyards, stepping over weed-covered toys. All too soon, they reached the others, a company of elven warriors a hundred strong in the parking lot behind a burned-out hamburger restaurant—Fatty’s Burgers, according to the still-standing sign depicting a cow with a sombrero.

  Angie had eaten a hamburger once during her first year in the Home Guard. They had accidentally shot up a Norteno cow during a raid, and Rowan had insisted Casey fly the carcass back to the Bunker. Most people rarely ate meat anymore, even Home Guard soldiers, so the hamburger had been a real treat, even if she had had to pick out a piece of bullet the size of a pea. Still, the burger had been delicious. She couldn't imagine what it had been like to eat a hamburger whenever she wanted one.

  She joined Tec and the dozen elven section leaders awaiting final orders from the prince. Prince Kilyn stood before them, next to an old map o
f Imperial Beach that was secured to the side of a rusted-out van behind him.

  Prince Kilyn cleared his throat and used a knife to point to one of the kill zones marked on the map with a red circle filled in with crosshatch lines. "As expected, the lead Aztalan force is the 4th Infantería Brigada, and it’s moving north along their key axis of advance, 9th Street." He indicated the north–south road they had just spied upon from the Lutheran church. The red kill zone sat at the intersection of 9th Street and Imperial Beach Boulevard running east–west. Angie saw a series of additional kill zones along that same boulevard on either side of the one centered on 9th Street. "We'll let the scouts advance past the kill zone and then strike the main body. Be wary, don't let the scouts see you. We want those soldiers out in the open, thinking they have a clear path to the Silver Strand."

  The section leaders watched, their strange faces expressionless. Several jotted notes into small notepads. None of them seemed the least bit worried, but Angie's nerves were charged with excitement—and fear, if she were being honest. The elves wore short swords and fighting knives, and some carried bows. None carried spears, which was odd because spears were the primary fighting weapon of the Phoenix Guard warriors, weapons they spent their lives mastering.

  "The plan is to hit the other Aztalan axis at the same time?" Tec asked, pointing to the other kill zones to the left and right of theirs.

  "Exactly at the same time," Prince Kilyn answered. "We've left the Aztalans untouched so far, with only minor harassment, the odd crossbow bolt or small attack, never a direct engagement, and never prolonged. They think we're running, and they’ll continue to think so—right up until the moment we kick them in the teeth."

  "What's the signal to attack?" Tec asked. "How do you plan to coordinate your other ambush sites? Horns, signal fires?"

  "Radios," Prince Kilyn answered. He nodded to a group of elves standing to the side with backpacks.

  The elves moved forward, distributing small radio sets to each of the squad leaders. For their part, the elves took the radios without comment, turned them on, and verified the channels before securing them. Angie watched open-mouthed. The Fey did use human technology when they wanted—Char had owned several generators—but never had she seen them using radios like this with such nonchalance. She shouldn’t have been surprised, not after learning how Wyn Renna had kept in contact with her mother.