by Ann Gimpel
Bending forward, I scanned the far side of our excavation, reaching my light as far as I could. Darkness bounced back. No reflections off anything, almost as if something was sucking the energy out of my LEDs and giving nothing back. No crystals in whatever lay through the narrow spot. Apparently, nothing else, either. I unzipped my suit and opened the panels beneath the arms and across my thighs. It didn’t help very much. I was still overheated.
“It should not be this warm,” Johan commented.
“Same thing I thought the first time I ended up here.” I pushed one shoulder through the space we were working on and wriggled it. “There. I can fit. Stop digging so nothing falls and traps me in there.”
“I can do better than that. Once you step through, I will stand in the space and ensure it remains open.”
I could have hugged him, but if I hesitated I might lose my nerve. I wished for the rope to tether myself to him. As weird as this place was, who knew where I’d end up once I left the crystal-lined cave. With my heart beating faster than it should and my mouth dry as a desert, I flipped on my flashlight. After waving it about like a madwoman trying to spin gold out of dross, I’d turned it off since Johan’s provided enough light to see by.
The back of my insulated suit caught on something, but Johan freed it, and I stepped into the unknown. Part of me expected there not to be a floor, but there was, and it was the same level as it should be. Crouching, I shone the light in a semi-circle. Rocks dotted the ground. If there were walls—and there pretty much had to be—they sat well beyond the beam of my high-powered flashlight.
Except I already knew that. Why had I expected anything would change?
Because there should be a wall. My inner voice was implacable. The one shared by the crystal cave, it added in case I was confused. I turned until I faced Johan. He was almost close enough to touch. Aiming my light beyond his form yielded blackness. The wall that had to be there wasn’t.
I spun back around before I turned into a blithering ninny. Staring hard at the ground, I took a few tentative steps. I wanted to make damn good and sure I didn’t miss one of those concave places and vanish into God knows where.
“Angle either right or left,” Johan suggested.
It was good advice, so I did, counting steps as I went. Quick glances behind me showed Johan illuminated by his flashlight. I didn’t want to put any more distance between us, but I kept going, anyway. Something about this darkness bothered me. It didn’t feel as safe as the cave I’d left behind.
When the fine hairs on the back of my neck twitched, I took a deep breath and told myself to get a grip. I was fifty paces from where I’d entered this place with no end in sight. No walls. Just the rock-strewn ground. Something about the rocks bothered me, so I stopped long enough to kneel and examine them. Rather than a mixed bag, like normal rocks, these were all roughly the same size. And they were rounded, almost as if someone had filed them or put them through a machine like the polisher rock hounds use to smooth agates.
Seventy-five steps. Still nothing.
A single musical note reverberated around me. Maybe I’d imagined it, but that goddamned music had presaged my initial fall, and the death of the Russian and maybe our second descent as well. I couldn’t remember.
I tried to keep moving. Truly I did, but I could not force myself to travel one inch beyond where I stood. Sweat gathered across my back and breasts and dripped down my body. I played the beam of my light around me, but I may as well have been in the bottom of a vast black pit.
Another note blatted against my ears. This one held a menacing aspect, but maybe I’d imagined it. The next noise wasn’t musical. It was a roar from no animal I’d ever heard before. Guttural and threatening, it sent me scuttling back toward Johan and his light. Puffing and panting and trying my damnedest not to scream, I wasn’t watching my feet. I hit one of the perfectly shaped rocks and fought to not sprawl face first onto the dirt.
The enraged animal roar died out replaced by Johan. “Take your time, Erin. Do not panic.”
Easy for him to say. I reined in bitterness and aggravation. I was in full-blown fight-or-flight mode and embarrassed to be caught out. My forehead joined the sweating party, and I wiped it on a shoulder. Forcing myself to follow the path my light illuminated, I covered the remaining distance. Once I got close, I noticed dirt had fallen on Johan’s head. He appeared to be cemented into the opening by clods of earth.
Before I could say anything, he extended a hand. “Grab onto me. On my count of three, we will combine our strength and push back into the place we started.”
I gripped his hand. It was warm and dry next to my cold, clammy one. “Ready.” My voice shook.
“Erin. We will not get a second chance. Butt your body up against mine to give you leverage.”
I didn’t ask how he knew about no second chances. At least the fucking music had stopped, but I expected a pissed-off dinosaur to come blasting out of the darkness, triple rows of teeth bared in rage.
“Ready,” I said again, trying my damnedest to project confidence I’d be the partner he needed, not deadweight.
“One. Two. Three.” He jerked the two of us so hard my shoulder popped.
I did my part and threw my entire weight after his. We fell in a heap on the floor of the crystal cave. Dirt rained around us as the hole we’d worked so hard on slammed shut as surely as if it had been a door.
I untangled myself and sat, rubbing my shoulder.
“Did you see anything at all?” Johan asked.
“Yeah. All the rocks were the same size.”
“You only thought they were.”
I grabbed his arm. “No. They were uniform in size. It bothered me, so I got close enough to examine a bunch of them, but that doesn’t matter. Did you recognize that screech?”
“No.”
“This will sound paranoid”—I floundered for words—“but something didn’t want me in there.”
“Same conclusion I came to.”
If a mule had kicked me in the chest, I wouldn’t have been more surprised. “Why aren’t you telling me I’m full of shit?”
“Because, the farther you went from me, the more dirt fell. I was worried about being trapped, but if I moved, you would never have found your way back.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“If it had gotten any worse, I would have.” He patted the hand I still had curled around his forearm. “Only one thing left to do.”
A shudder racked me. “No. I don’t want to jump into that thing.”
“We do not have any other choices. Something does not want us to leave this place.” His voice was neutral, but steel sat behind it. In the face of his determination and courage, how could I act like a mewling wimp?
“We could try to climb out.” I neglected tacking again onto the end of my sentence.
“Before the explosion, we might have. Even if we made the upper chamber, despite having food, we would still be stuck.”
The bomb. I hadn’t exactly forgotten about it, but neither had it been in the forefront of my mind.
“Okay. I guess it’s not something where one of us can go and look around and report back.”
“No, it is not.” He pulled a water bottle out of his suit and took a long drink, swiping the back of his hand across his mouth. “The vortex may not be as big a longshot as all that. Something appears to want us to remain alive.”
“It sure as fuck didn’t feel that way when I was over there.” I waved a hand at the spot we’d clawed our way out of. The opening we’d widened had been obliterated, filled in with rocks and dirt.
“Maybe not.” Johan got to his feet and offered me a hand up. “The dirt could have crushed me, yet it stopped short. Whatever that beast was could have shown itself.”
“None of this is making me feel better.” I followed him to the edge of the concave spot and tossed one more rock into it, checking. The stone vanished just like the other two had.
“Put your
arms around me, Erin.”
“Why?”
“This is not an ill-timed seduction scheme. We must not get separated. If this is a magnetic anomaly or a type of black hole, I want us to come out the other side still together.”
I suspected the vortex was as likely to rip flesh from bones as to deliver us safely anywhere, but I kept my mouth shut and put my arms around him. He held me tight. So tight, I felt the thud of his heart against my ear.
“Here we go,” he said and jumped dead into the center of the declination.
Golden light shimmered around us, and the music blared. Not single notes but a barrage of discordant pitches where each bit of sound battled its companions for ascendency.
I clung to Johan, and we plummeted downward. Too late, I realized we’d left the guns behind.
Chapter 5
Konstantin’s shift didn’t happen as quickly as he would have liked. Probably because he was in a hurry—and had expended more magic than he’d used in a while killing the Russians. Finally fully human, he teleported into the heart of the lair he and Katya had carved out for themselves.
After the other dragon shifters left, he and his sister had made many changes. Since there were only two of them, and magic wasn’t limitless, they’d altered many of their systems to be self-sustaining. The last of the seedlings had withered to dust many seasons ago, so they no longer expended any effort growing things. He missed vegetables, but there wasn’t much he could do about it.
Other than relocating to a more commodious climate. Somewhere amenable to growing crops.
He and Katya had discussed importing seeds and starting over, but he feared the same fate would meet new crops too. Something about the soil didn’t lend itself to farming. It was probably far too alkaline, but he’d never tested his theory. Instead of fancy lab equipment—although he could have snuck inside one of the research bases that had sprouted across Antarctica like cancerous growths—he trusted his dragon senses.
The fact that all light had to be created by judicious use of magic and reflection probably didn’t help the crop situation. Living underground wasn’t ideal. Not for dragons. Not for crops. Probably not for much of anything beyond the blind fish that populated the eerily beautiful subterranean lakes.
The grand hall where he’d left Katya rose around him, and he splayed his toes across the marble flooring. It was always pleasantly warm from its proximity to the earth’s crust.
Katya raced to his side. “You were gone for a long time. What happened? Did you kill anyone? Did anybody see you? Did—?”
“Stop! First off, why did you say my return wasn’t a moment too soon?”
She raked curved fingers through her coppery hair. “Because those humans are more trouble than they’re worth. First, they tried to dig their way out of the crystal cave.”
“So what? Nowhere they can go.”
“Of course, there is.” Katya pursed her full lips into a grim line. “One of them—the woman—made it into a side channel. If she’d followed it, she’d have come out in the middle of Level A.”
“I’m still not seeing the problem.” When there had been a full complement of dragons here, they’d divided the land into six levels with roughly eight dragons assigned to develop each one. They’d built dwellings and cleared fields near enough to the freshwater lakes to simplify irrigation.
Katya shot an irritated look his way. “The human would have found an empty house, and shed. She would have seen the last batch of dead crops and known someone used to live there.”
“But we planned to reveal ourselves to them, anyway.”
Fire puffed from her mouth. She didn’t appreciate being corrected. “Planned to reveal limited aspects,” she growled. “Not our entire history. Not until we were certain they would embrace our offer to become like us.”
He eyed his sister. If she was panicking about discovery, it was probably a good thing to get his confession under way. “I did not employ stealth after I left. Enough humans saw me to shit themselves. Rumors of dragons will come to life again.”
Katya grabbed his arm. “Damn it, Konstantin. We’re supposed to remain hidden.”
“Yes, well, that was before humans set the wheels in motion to destroy Earth. We live forever. They do not. If seeing me breathes new life into the superstitions that kept humans from mowing through resources as if they were limitless, I did a good and decent—”
“I’m not seeing the relationship between the two,” she broke in.
He tried to come up with a snappy retort, but couldn’t, mostly because he was making excuses for doing something he’d wanted to do for a long time. Dragon shifters were a proud race, not accustomed to skulking in shadows.
He uncurled her fingers from his arm. “The woman. Did she get to Level A?”
“No. I scared her. Made her run back to the man.”
Alarm seared him, and he realized he’d already begun to view Miss No Name as potential mate material. “What did you do?”
“Used my dragon voice. And made certain the man almost got stuck in the opening they hollowed out.”
He frowned. “I thought your dragon left.”
“She did, but I can still bugle with the best of them.” Opening her mouth, she blasted sound all around them.
He bugled back. “If you can still do that,” he told his sister, “your dragon can’t be buried too deep.”
“Do you really believe so?” Her golden eyes sheened with hope.
Konstantin nodded. “How long ago did you chase the humans back to the cave? Have you checked on them since?”
“Not long, and no.” She hesitated. “How is it I answer your questions, but you walk around mine?”
“Fair enough. I killed two men. The third one believed in us, so I let him go.” Smoke billowed from his mouth and nose.”
“There is more,” Katya prodded.
Her mirror may have dulled, but his sister’s sixth sense about when something had been left out was as acute as ever. Konstantin nodded. “I feared the man’s compatriots would accuse him of killing the other three, and—”
“I thought you said two.”
“I am also counting the one in the cavern who met his fate first.”
“All right. I’d forgotten about him. Go on.”
“I may have given the believer a ride back to his boat.”
Katya screeched long and shrill, obliterating the last of his words. “You took a human onto your back? What in the Nine Hells is wrong with you?”
“There is nothing wrong with me,” Konstantin said stiffly. “I wished to ensure his safety, and so I returned him to his people in such a way his tale of a dragon killing the others would be credible.”
Katya rolled her expressive eyes; steam and smoke huffed through her nose and mouth. “I suppose you were so hungry for evidence we’ve not been forgotten, you took his story on faith.”
“I most certainly did not.” Anger tightened his belly, and a flame or two shot from his mouth. “I tested his words. He had a grandmother, no a great-grandmother, who had actually seen one of us.”
“Pfft.”
“Do you accuse me of lying, Sister?” In all their time together, they’d never had a serious disagreement. It appeared that was about to change. Konstantin planted himself right in front of Katya.
“No.” The word held a sullen note. “Merely of not looking too deeply when something that pleases you surfaces.”
“I was already in a good mood before the man, who acted differently from the other two, told me about his great-grandmother. Days when I rid the earth of bad men are always grand days.”
The tension that had been sitting between them like an overstretched bowstring broke, and Katya smiled indulgently. “Some men need killing.”
“These certainly do. Anyway, the ship had launched another raft, and I dropped my passenger squarely into it.”
“They must have shot at you.”
He shrugged. “For all the good it—”
&nb
sp; Her pleasant expression darkened, and she pounded a palm with the other fist. “Damn it all to hell.”
Goddess be damned, indeed. One of many magical markers he’d set to warn them if their borders were breached blared as surely as any alarm would have. The fucking humans must have steel balls. They’d jumped through a trap door, one-way gates constructed to ensure once someone was snared they’d never find their way back out.
Surely, they’d tested the odd-looking spot and knew it held a gravitational pull. His dragon wanted out, but he kept it contained. Plenty of room for it in this grand chamber with twenty-foot ceilings, but it was in a rowdy mood. The deaths they’d meted out fed a primitive part of the beast, and preserving the upper hand might prove difficult.
Smoky flames poured from his mouth. The dragon was not pleased, but its ire reinforced Konstantin’s decision.
However it happened, he intended to talk with the humans. That task would be far harder if most of his mental strength was diverted to ensure the dragon didn’t slip its bonds.
“They’re almost here.” Katya’s voice was tense, and she balanced magic, arcing it back and forth between her raised hands.
“They cannot hurt us,” he reminded her. “Sheathe your power. It will only make them nervous because they won’t understand its source.”
“I know, but they have guns, and this could get…unpleasant.”
“Our job is to ensure it remains cordial.”
The notes—music was part of many of his castings—grew louder and more discordant. Konstantin stood next to his sister, watchful but relaxed. He was more curious about this duo than anything else. How was it they’d survived where so many of their companions were dead?
Light splashed across the far end of the chamber, first golden and then a clear blue-white. When it cleared, the humans faced at right angles away from him and Katya, clutched in one another’s arms and breathing hard.
