Firestorm

by William Stacey

  Sorry, Angie. I couldn't come for you after all. I failed you, failed everyone.

  His bitterness burned like a fire in this throat as he took aim once more, this time picking out what he hoped was an Aztalan officer screaming orders at the others. His finger tightened on the trigger—

  And Tec gasped. The dragon-mark on his left palm flared into life for the first time since his master's death.

  Something had changed.

  Something wondrous.

  Far to the south, in a new sleeping hole beneath the mountains, the black dragon Itzpapalotl awoke from a deep slumber.

  Something had changed.

  Something terrible.

  Chapter 40

  Her body and hair still wet, shivering with cold, Angie set the golden egg atop the table in the bunker's command post. Each of her nerve endings was charged, and her pulse raced. The air throbbed with power. The last time she had felt such energy was in the presence of the feathered serpent. It was surreal, like a dream. She was afraid she’d wake up, discover it was a dream, but there before her was a dragon egg.

  Erin threw a large towel over Angie’s shoulders and soaked T-shirt, and Angie pulled it tight about her.

  "Well," said Casey, standing behind her with his family and the four We Clan members, "who's up for a really big omelet?"

  When Erin glowered at him, he rolled his eyes.

  Angie bent over the table, peering intently at the egg. "Put a light behind it."

  Rowan, still in his underwear, had his bright underwater light, and he shined it on the rear of the egg. Despite her hopes, the egg wasn't translucent, and she couldn't see anything within in. It still throbbed with golden light, but here where it wasn’t dark, the light wasn’t as overpowering. There's a baby dragon in there.

  She met Rowan's eyes. "You said there might be treasure..."

  Rowan’s gaze was filled with wonder. "Wasn't expecting this."

  "No one was. Not even Tec."

  "You sure?" Erin asked softly.

  "I'm sure." And she was. Not because they had been lovers but because their intimacy had been so intense, she was certain neither would have been able to hide anything from the other. No, Tec had held nothing back from her that night in Coronado. For maybe the first time in his life, he had completely trusted another, as had she.

  "I doubt Queen Elenaril knew either. Char certainly didn't. I think maybe … maybe this is the reason Quetzalcoatl went after the other dragon, Tezcatlipoca, because he knew he wasn't the last. Maybe he was even trying to save this one..." She sighed. "I have no idea. I'm guessing."

  "I think you're entitled to guess," said Rowan.

  Sandman edged closer to the table, his sister, Earl, and Silver Katana looking over his shoulder. Fear and wonder flitted across their faces. "Is that really..."

  "A dragon egg," Angie confirmed.

  "Saw ’em on television," said Earl. The old man's body was stooped and frail, wracked by a too-hard life, but his eyes shone like those of a child on Christmas morning. "A lifetime ago, seems like."

  The wonder in his voice moved Angie, and she wrapped an arm around his waist and hugged him. "I remember that day too. Now."

  "May I?" Miss Fortune asked, her small hand raised toward the egg.

  Angie smiled. "Gently."

  The girl trailed her fingers over the scaled, pebbled surface of the egg. Her face lit up in a smile. "It's warm."

  "It's alive," Angie answered.

  "What now?" Rowan asked. "I'm assuming we need to guard it from the other one, the big black one?"

  A current of fear coursed through Angie as she thought of Itzpapalotl. Of course she had to keep it safe. The need to do so was overwhelming, but how? She knew nothing of dragons. No one did.

  But Tec might.

  "I have to get to Sanwa City," she said. "Now more than ever. As soon as possible."

  "About that," Casey said then cleared his throat. He glanced at the radio set within the room. "While you and Erin were down below, Jay and I picked up a UHF signal, a one-in-a-hundred bounce off the ionosphere. It was just a snatch of a transmission but..." He bit his upper lip, his face uncertain.

  "Oh, for God's sake, Casey," said Jay. "Tell her."

  "It was coming from Sanwa City, sounded like Marshal himself. He was pleading for support from the other Commonwealth cities, especially ammo. He said ... he said the city was going to fall, maybe a day, maybe not even that long. That was an hour ago."

  "Jesus," whispered Angie, the room seeming to grow dark around her. "We need to go." She looked to Rowan, her panic soaring. "We have to start driving right now!"

  This time the Seagraves exchanged small smiles, and Casey's eyes shone. "Maybe not, Angie-baby."

  She stared at Casey in confusion.

  Angie faced the gleaming Blackhawk helicopters, the smell of aviation fuel pungent in the enclosed hangar. The last time she had been down here, both aircraft had been prepped for storage, their rotors removed. Now the closest aircraft had all the rotors attached and looked ready for flight—and battle. Two powerful stub wings extended from the aircraft's fuselage, and attached to the hard points were four Hellfire antitank missiles, a pair of Hydra 70 mm unguided rocket pods, and a 12.7 mm GAU-19 triple barrel Gatling gun. Someone had painted a snarling wolf's head onto the nose of the aircraft. It must have been a rush job, because the paint had run, making it look like the wolf's fangs dripped blood. She stepped closer, seeing Casey's name had been hand-painted under the pilot's window: Captain Casey "Grim" Seagrave, his old call sign in the Home Guard.

  She turned to see the smiles on the faces of the Seagraves. Casey looked ready to burst with pride. He stepped forward, hands on hips, as he considered the aircraft. "She's no fancy-dancy Shrike. Can't carry half the payload, and she's noisy as hell, but I figure she'll do the job."

  Now she saw the second Blackhawk helicopter was missing parts, the paneling removed, and the engine, wiring, and turbines exposed. She stared at Casey, overwhelmed with emotion. "But ... but you said you couldn't repair them."

  "Said it would take weeks—with an aircraft mechanic to help. Didn't have a mechanic, so we all had to dig in and figure shit out on our own." He slung an arm around both Erin’s and Jay's necks, pulling their heads in tight. "Good thing my little sister and bro are way smarter than I am."

  "Got that right," said Jay, but Angie could see he too beamed with pride. He and his sister slipped out from under Casey's arms. "Had to strip parts from the other, but..."

  "And it'll fly?" Then she remembered what Earl had said about seeing a helicopter the other night. "You've already flown it!"

  There was a loud boom as an engine roared to life, followed by the clanking of heavy metal chains. Sunlight shot through the hangar as the two hangar doors on the far side of the chamber began to open, a rumble filling the large aircraft bay. Angie stared, shielding her eyes as the bay doors swept open, sliding along grooves to disappear into the wall, exposing bright sunlight and a panoramic view of the eastern mountainside. Angie rushed over, peering over the edge of a steeply sloping cliff face.

  "Took it up for a test drive the other day," Rowan said.

  Casey joined them. "Had some issues with the tail rotor, but I think we've got it all sussed out now. Least I hope we do. If we're gonna bring ammo to help, we're gonna need to take it slow with the engine. Sanwa City's almost five hundred klicks north, and this beast lumbers along at a top speed of about three hundred and fifty k—which we're not gonna even try, so don't ask—but even at half that, it should only take us a couple hours at best. Should get us there in plenty of time to die with your cat-boyfriend."

  She squealed with joy, wrapping her arms around him and hugging him with every ounce of strength she had.

  He must have been momentarily taken aback, because he stiffened in surprise. Then he grinned and patted her back. "Just don't go blaming me if we fall out of the sky. I'm a pilot, not a mechanic."

  Rowan took a breather, placing his h
ands on the small of his aching back and stretching as the others loaded the helicopter with crates of 5.56 mm ammunition. The Ferals helped—No, he mentally corrected himself, the We Clan, not Ferals. That was going to take some getting used to. According to Angie, these ones weren't cannibals, but that didn't mean they were civilized. And what the hell kind of name was We Clan? He sighed. Didn't matter. The world was changing again; he felt it in his tired old bones. Got one more fight in me, but that's about it.

  He glanced at the wheeled cart with the ammo boxes. Tec had an impressive armory here, but they were only bringing the 5.56 mm ammunition. That was the old NATO standard used by all Western nations before A-Day, and both the Home Guard and Norteno military still used the ammo.

  When he heard soft footsteps approach, he turned to see the same young girl who always seemed to be around Angie. She held a long cloth-bound object in her thin arms and watched him with obvious trepidation. These people know who we are, he realized. The werewolves that hunted them. After a lifetime in uniform, there was so much blood on his hands, they’d never come clean.

  He smiled, hoping he didn’t look like a hungry wolf. "What can I do for you, little miss?"

  "Miss Fortune," she said, the pride in her voice at odds with the fear in her big brown eyes. "You call me Miss Fortune."

  He nodded. All these people had weird-ass names, and they seemed prickly about them. He'd already had words with Casey, making sure his not-so-sensitive brother didn't say something shockingly offensive. Casey was physically incapable of engaging his brain before barfing out whatever thought was rattling about his skull.

  "What can I do for you?"

  She unwrapped the end of the bundle she carried, showing him the macahuitl that they had examined when they’d first found Tec's bunker weeks ago. It resembled a two-handed wooden bat with chips of razor-sharp obsidian inserted all along its edges. "It's magic," she said. "You can kill a mage with it."

  "Nuh-uh. Not me, hon ... Miss Fortune. I'm no mage."

  "Yes, you can. I think it has dragon magic."

  "Dragon magic, huh?" He smirked. "And you'd know about this sort of thing how?"

  Her face hardened. "'Cause I'm sensitive, always have been. Don't be such a stupid heel and take the stupid sword, you big, stupid wolf."

  He laughed, suddenly liking her. "I'll try not to be." Rowan took the weapon, finding its weight and balance superb. Just how old is this thing?

  "You and your family are all a bunch of assholes. Real heels. But the elders say that the crowd loves a good heel turn." She spun away, leaving him with the weapon.

  He watched her go, shaking his head. "Strangest god-damned people I ever did meet."

  As night fell, the Blackhawk—loaded with as much ammunition as Casey felt was safe to carry in an unproven, questionably maintained aircraft—rose into a hover and slipped forward, building up speed before it shot out the open hangar doors. Sandman, his sister, Earl, Silver Katana, and a dozen other We Clan members waved farewell.

  It's their home now, Angie thought from where she sat in the aircraft’s cabin, her back to the cockpit. I hope they find their people and maybe some happiness here. She clutched the dragon egg against her chest, with a part of her screaming that bringing the precious egg into a war was crazy stupid. But if anyone knew anything about dragons, it would be Tec.

  She wore one of the crew headsets, as did Erin and Jay, sitting across from her, their boots resting on the crates of ammo tied down with cargo netting. Erin carried a humongous bullpup anti-materiel rifle across her lap that she had appropriated from Tec’s arsenal, saying that they might need the firepower.

  Angie’s headset chirped, followed a moment later by Casey’s voice: "Okay, super mages, baby dragons, and noble werewolf warriors—you too, Jay. Air Werewolf Flight 101 has just taken off, bound for beautiful Sanwa City. We'll be cruising at an easy two hundred and fifty kilometers an hour today—just so our engines don't burn out under the stress of carrying all these bullets—and I expect we'll be arriving in about ... oh, let's say, two hours—ish, just as long as one of the rotors Jay installed doesn't go winging off. I'd say that's a fifty-fifty chance."

  Despite her nerves, Angie grinned. Erin rolled her eyes, shook her head, and smiled. Jay, red-faced, gave the bird to the back of Casey's head in the cockpit. When he saw Angie watching him, he shook his head and yelled, "He's full of shit. I turned the bolts wicked tight. With a wrench even."

  The helicopter banked and turned northwest.

  She was going home.

  In the hangar, Sandman stood with his sister and the others as the aircraft disappeared. They had a home now, and the weapons to defend it. Now they needed to go save their people taken hostage by the southerners. He couldn't help Angie and her friends, nor was it even his fight. His duty was clear. So why did he feel like he was letting her down?

  His sister must have felt the same way, because she spat on the concrete floor. "Ain't right. Feels like we're the heels."

  "Not our fight," Sandman said.

  Silver Katana sniffed loudly, the way his aunt always did when she thought he was full of shit.

  "Been through a lot last few weeks," Earl said. "Time was, folk looked after one another."

  Sandman ran his fingers over the head of the hexed ax resting in his belt. "We brought Angie here, kept our word. Got our own problems now. Gotta figure out how to save our own. The wallies ..." He sighed. "Lot of bad blood between them and us."

  "Yup," agreed Earl, the simple word filled with meaning.

  Sandman glared at the older man. "Even if we wanted to help, Sanwa City's a good ways away. Take us a week to hike there."

  "Yup." Earl bobbed his head.

  "Gotta rescue our own," Sandman mumbled angrily, more to himself than anyone else.

  "Any reason we can't do both?" his aunt asked. "I can take a hundred guns and a hundred fighters and bust that camp open afore any of those southerners even knows I was there. Been fighting all my life, feels like. Figure I can take on some heels come looking to stir shit up."

  Sandman remained silent. His aunt was right about that. She was a right fierce one and always had been. Tougher n'leather. Tougher n'me, that's for sure and for certain. They were waiting on him, though. It was his call. Not because he was a shaman—although that mattered—but because they had been looking to him for leadership for years now. From this day on, he'd lead the We Clan; he knew it in his bones. The responsibility pressed upon him. The others would do as he said, even if they didn't agree. But what should I do? He stood in place for a long time.

  Finally, he turned to Earl. "Before A-Day, you said you was a trucker, right?"

  "Yup." Earl spat on the cement floor.

  "So ... do you remember how to drive?"

  The old man smiled through missing teeth. "Yup."

  Chapter 41

  Under cover of night, the enemy surged forward, but Tec had seen them mustering, even from far away, and had passed the warning on to his fighters. The defenders shot flares into the night, exposing the advancing enemy, and then opened fire, but ammunition had grown increasingly scarce, and their gunfire was pathetic compared to the enemy’s massed return fire. Most of the enemy bullets cracked overhead, but some hit their marks with meaty thuds, and men and women fell dead from the wall.

  "Pick your targets," Tec yelled. "Make each bullet count."

  On the ground below, the enemy advance slowed, as if they were waiting. What now? When he heard the roar of engines, he understood: They're trying to ram the gates again.

  This time, three trucks came barreling out from behind trees, all converging on the southern gates just below Tec. The enemy fire picked up in intensity as the trucks advanced with difficulty over the rough terrain. If even one truck reached the gates…

  The lead truck was a rusted-out flatbed transport, its bed filled with what looked like stacks of hay. The other two were an old garbage carrier and a cement mixer. The defenders opened fire on the lead transport, t
rying to kill the driver as they had the first time the Aztalans had tried this tactic, but the enemy had learned and had welded metal plates to the windows of all three vehicles, leaving only a slit for the driver. Tec squinted. A figure stood in the back of the lead flatbed with a lit torch. A moment later, the bed caught fire, casting up thick plumes of smoke. The bales must have been soaked in gasoline. The figure with the torch fell away, rolling along behind the truck, followed a moment later by the driver. The truck kept coming. It would miss the gates, but the smoke obscured the other trucks.

  Now Tec understood the threat.

  "Ignore the lead truck," he yelled, running down the wall and repeating his instructions. "Fire on the other two, not the first." He reached one of the heavy machine-gun crews, the only gun that still had ammo. "Target the rear vehicles."

  The gunner, a Norteno soldier with gray hair and a grease-blackened face, nodded, working the charging handle of his M2 Browning 50-caliber machine gun. He took aim. The loader looked to Tec with wide, frightened eyes. "Only half a belt left."

  "Use it all, but stop those trucks!"

  The gunner fired, the detonation unbelievably loud, and sent fiery red tracers at the garbage truck. The man knew his business, and while the first tracers impacted the ground before the truck, the next volley ripped into the engine and then punched right through the plates over the window. Tec didn't know if the bullets killed the driver or not, but it didn't matter. The vehicle exploded, the detonation hurling the nearby Aztalan soldiers to the ground. The fireball burned high into the sky, painting the battle orange.