California Imperium

by Aaron Crash

  Cigarettes. Food. Cigarettes.

  He had to eat to fuel his cells. He had to smoke to fuel his mind.

  He would lay the twenty-five cigarettes in front of him. In Portland, they were Marlboro Reds, and he had his Zippo lighter. Welded to the Zippo was a firesteel, his father’s firesteel, the one he’d used when he’d eaten Romans on the Iberian Peninsula.

  His father had been a dragon. His mother had been a Magician. They had loved each other. All the women in his father’s Escort had loved little Bruno, but Bruno only loved his father and his firesteel and his smoke. Even back then he had the smoke because the smoke is far older than Marlboro men or any of that newfangled commerce.

  Always smoke. Even when he was little. Even before the Dragon Slayer found him and cut him dreadfully, dreadfully, dreadfully.

  Even before Bruno Illick became a legend that killed other legends because the humans thought dragons were legends. It was all legends and myths and stories. Like the story of Rahaab and Mathaal murdering their little brother Icharaam for a piece of cheese. Or was that for magic beans?

  Bruno put the cigarettes out on the floor before lighting the next one with his Zippo. New lighters were easier than building a fire with the firesteel. But he couldn’t forget his father. Never.

  Bruno would smoke five cigarettes, eat five things, and the smoke another five cigarettes, because five was a powerful number. A pentagram had five points. Both humans and Dragonsouls had five fingers. There were five great mysteries: Father, Son, Spirit, Creation, and Redemption.

  Four rounds of five.

  Then Bruno would be ready. The humans were always very upset that he smoked in their rooms and rearranged the furniture and left his bathwater for them, filthy and brackish, in the bathtub. He would give them thousands of dollars if he didn’t kill them.

  Bruno was big for a human, over six feet tall. He was even bigger as a dragon, nearly sixty feet long. Bruno was very pale, both as a human and a dragon, and he liked that, and he liked the way he smelled, like vanilla, warm vanilla, sweet and comforting. He hoped those he killed found comfort in death, for he knew he would when his time came.

  Until then, he would eat, smoke, sleep in the bathwater, and keep himself clean, his white hair clipped out of his eyes. The humans found him uncomfortable when he checked in, even before he ruined their motel rooms, even before he killed them.

  Because, you see, most of the time the smoke wanted the humans dead. It needed their Animus. But sometimes the smoke wanted him to give the monkeys money. Either way, his debts were always paid. Honesty was important.

  Roy Right wanted him to kill Steven Drokharis, but not right away, no, this boy had to find something first. Roy had made that clear. However, Bruno would track Steven until he found what Roy wanted him to find.

  That seemed easy enough, though Steven Drokharis was becoming a legend. Fine, fine, fine. Bruno would hunt Steven. And another legend would hunt Bruno. And it would all go around and around.

  For if five was a powerful number, three was even more so.

  He’d finished his last cigarette, eaten the last of the food, when Roy Right called him.

  Naked, Bruno answered the phone. Roy Right called him a Ronin. Bruno wasn’t a Ronin, he was the angel of death.

  Steven Drokharis’s sins were legion. He would be killed.

  And if fate were kind, the legend-hunting Bruno would kill him.

  Then there would be only one.

  And one was perfect. One was everything Bruno longed to be.

  Until then, the kill, the food, and the smoke.

  And baths.

  And sleep, beautiful, dreamy sleep.

  Chapter Eight

  “Magica Cura!” Steven thundered. He had his hands on Aria’s crumpled form. She was alive, but that explosion of ... what ... ice? from the torch had sent her careening into a statue of a Dragonknight leaning on a double-bladed battle-ax.

  Tessa stayed back from the table, as did everyone else. Zoey had made it out of the ocean and onto the rock ledge above. She shifted into a wolf to dexterously walk down the steps until she was standing next to Steven.

  The temperature inside the strange chamber had plummeted. Seaweed withered into icicles. Tide pools frosted over, killing the anemone inside them. Crabs were caught in the ice. The walls were lined with frozen lines of water.

  Another wave crashed against the lip. Water dropped into the room, but it too started to freeze immediately, hanging in the air like spikes of ice. The droplets were like frozen snow. How cold would it have to be to freeze saltwater? He didn’t know. However, Steven and his Escort themselves weren’t affected. No, this wasn’t physics, this was magic. That ice torch was doing something. But what?

  The map on the round table shuddered. A tremendous crunch echoed through the space. Zoey howled in fear.

  Mouse cursed. “Fuck this motherfucking shit!”

  Aria was alive, but she was breathing hard.

  Tears tracked down Tessa’s face. She screamed out her tension.

  Then an invisible force hit them. It felt like punch in the gut, and they all went down, some on their hands and knees. Others, like Steven, were thrown against the wall. Zoey yelped.

  He felt the spell attacking his Animus core, siphoning out his strength. This was what it felt to be on the savage end of AnimusChain. His soul was being sucked into the round table in front of them. It shimmered, shaking, all that energy filling it, outlining each continent, shining on the surface. Steven was reminded of Earth’s city lights as seen from space.

  Every one of his Escort was being affected by the AnimusChain. Zoey yelped.

  Then, abruptly, it was over. They were all weakened considerably.

  The tabletop swiveled on unseen hinges, coming unstuck after how many years so close to the sea? Five hundred years? Eight hundred? A thousand. At least that long since the statues wore medieval armor.

  Steven thought of casting a Divination spell, but he wasn’t sure he had the Animus for it. Plus, he might miss whatever was going to happen next. He felt Sabina, felt her in his mind. Don’t, Steven. This has to happen this way. You won’t die. The table needed your Animus to power the Enchantrix magic. This is Tessa’s destiny. For better or for worse.

  That was the Latina Magician’s Divination magic at work, creating a kind of ghostly telepathy between them. Well, that was surprising. And definitely something to file away for later. If they could use Magica Divinatio to talk, they wouldn’t need the radios.

  The map of the Earth flipped up and over. On the other side was an eye. The eyelid, the iris, and the pupil all were carved into the rock below the ice torch hanging in midair. It was strange, but then things got stranger.

  Another wave splashed down and froze more water. A ceiling of ice was forming, hundreds of pounds of frozen fractals. If much more water formed there, they might be in danger of being crushed.

  “For the love of biscuits!” Mouse’s breath shot out of her nostrils. The entire strange chamber was lit with the green fire of the Slayer Blade, but not for long.

  Tessa put her hands to her face and started to sob.

  Steven knew why. This wasn’t going to be simple. Whatever they were about to be shown, it wasn’t going to be easy, and Tessa knew it. And it was breaking her heart.

  A light shot from the round eye, shattering the ice above them into a million fragments. The sudden light filled the shattered ice that spun above them.

  Steven was reminded of the ink that had formed to show him his past, the murder of his parents, the treachery of Rhaegen Mulk.

  This was Enchantrix magic, and someday, Steven would be able to create spectacles like this.

  The ice storm formed a man with a long beard and a staff. The wood of the stick was bent at the top, into a shape, with how many sides? It was hard to count. More than five, though. And not quite ten? The old man fashioned from ice took hold of the torch and the ice erupted into flame, but it was a cold fire.

  When the
light struck the faces of the Dragonknights, they changed from the snouts of dragons to the flat faces of men. The stone lips of a man with a smooth face split to intone a single word. It wasn’t English, but somehow, Steven understood it. “The.”

  The bearded man next to him said the next word. “Daughter.”

  A knight with a moustache spoke. “Of.” And so it went. Around the room, voices boomed out, each saying a word.

  “Merlin.”

  “Will.”

  “Open.”

  “The.”

  “First.”

  “Eye.”

  And so it went, each knight uttering a single word, going around the circle. “But. The. Grail. Will. Remain. Hidden. Until. The. Lost. Son. Returns. To. Free. Us. All.”

  At that last word, the torch flamed brighter, finally becoming flame. The wizard at the center strode forward, lifting the torch, and that flickering light shined down on Tessa alone as the ice crystals of the arm began to melt.

  Steven watched Tessa’s face, tearstained, cold, pale. And then. A smile.

  “He’s saying words.” Aria spoke from behind the barista. “The man. I see him speak, but I can’t hear it.”

  Whatever the wizard was saying, he only had a second left before the torch would burn him away. The temperature of the chamber was increasing, and all the snow and ice was turning back into water. The wizard’s long hair was gone, his shoulders slumped, and the robes splashed down on the table in spatters of ocean stink.

  Steven raced around to see what the man might be saying.

  The arm holding the torch was only icy bones. His legs were gone as was his other arm. His beard was a waterfall.

  But his lips, over and over, said the same words. The daughter of Merlin. The daughter of Merlin. The daughter of Merlin. His ice eyes were fixed on Tessa.

  And those icy eyes never left Tessa’s face.

  She was the daughter of Merlin. And she had opened the first eye.

  The torch fell as the arm melted away. The metal tinked onto the table, then rolled across the floor. But that mask of a face, etched into ice, hung there until the eyes drooled away and then the lips and finally the cheeks.

  A foot of water covered the chamber, and more was added as the next wave came crashing in. Zoey morphed into a bear.

  Tessa bent to pick up the fallen torch, but it flashed. She let out a cry, clutching her hand to her chest. “It’s hot!”

  Aria, though, was in her Homo Draconis form, so she was naturally more resistant to heat. She bent and scooped up the torch in her claws. This time, it didn’t cast her aside, but flashed again. Electric arcs of energy sizzled out of the metal. First ice. Then flame. Now lightning.

  The Indian woman wasn’t hurt, though. The lightning illuminated every crack of the chamber. It arced across the statues of the dragons, from one face to the next, turning the faces from human back to dragons.

  The arcs of energy coalesced around the table. Steven and his Escort stood back to watch as the table flipped again, hiding the eye, and showed the rough-hewn map of the continents. A second map, made from electricity, hovered over the stone.

  A spark whizzed around the room to hover over them, on the Oregon coast. It then flashed across the Pacific to float over a very specific island in the Indian Ocean, south of Borneo, north of Australia.

  Aria, holding the strange torch, whispered, “Bali.” She did know more geography than all of them put together.

  The lightning erupted out of the chamber in a flash. All went quiet except for the constant churn of the ocean above, the drip of water, and their labored breathing.

  Then the chamber began to shake.

  “Out of the chamber!” Steven called out.

  Mouse went first, followed by Tessa and Aria. Zoey shifted into a human, and she dashed upward.

  Steven was the last up. When he turned, he watched as the rocky, pool-covered ground of the Dragonknight Chamber rose to cover the table, the statues, and the walls. It continued rising until it was level with the ground on his right.

  On his left, the Americos Chamber remained, half full of water. The statues and basins were nearly impossible to make out; they appeared as if part of the tide pools. It would be easy to miss, especially if there were added spells, magic Tessa had wiped out using her Incanto charm. When the tide was in, the chamber would be covered completely.

  Were the Americos Chambers connected to the Dragonknights? It seemed so, but he didn’t know for sure. The statues were different, for one thing. In the Americos Chambers, the Homo Draconi had no trappings. They were simple half-dragon men, reaching upward over a basin. And the feel of the places was different.

  Steven would have to get word to Javier Jones, who was studying the Americos Chambers. Is that where he’d gotten his static-form magic? Or was that a gift from Spider Finger?

  Just more questions.

  In silence, they walked off the ledge to stand on the beach where their clothes lay in piles.

  Tessa took the torch from Aria. It was cool now, so she could hold it. Tears tracked down her face, and Steven saw his vision coming true.

  But those tears weren’t of sorrow. Tessa laughed and held up the torch. “I’m Merlin’s daughter, bitches. Me. Tessa Ann Roth. Merlin’s. Daughter. And who opened the eye? You guessed it. Merlin’s daughter. Me.”

  Aria shifted human to take Tessa in her arms.

  Mouse also shifted, naked, cold, holding her big sword. “Uh, not really daughter. I mean, descendant is probably more accurate.”

  “Easy, Mouse,” Steven growled in his partial form, gripping Samael’s Lash.

  Tessa stiffened. She turned. Touched her ear. “Sabina, what?”

  In the distance, a dozen dragons were visible, flying in a V like Canadian snow geese on the wing.

  In the ocean, the water frothed with polar bears swimming in. Their white fur trailed out behind them, and their white bodies were visible underneath the wine-dark sea.

  The chop of helicopter rotors sounded in the distance. Onboard would be Warlings, without a doubt.

  Liang Pope had found them. But how? He couldn’t have scried them, and during his call, Steven had given away zero information.

  In the end, it might not matter. Steven and his Escort, weakened by the Dragonknight Chamber’s AnimusChain, were in no condition to fight. He thought about bringing Chazzie, Pru, and Sabina in right away. No, he’d wait. The Wayne twins and the Latina Magician could strike at his enemies’ flank.

  Sabina’s voice whispered into Steven’s mind. Yes, we will help you when you need it the most. You gave me a life, Steven Drokharis. And today, I will give it up. I will give up everything for you, my Prime.

  Chapter Nine

  IT HAD STOPPED RAINING. Steven and four of his wives stood in the middle of the beach, halfway between the waves and the first trees about a hundred yards away across a stretch of sand. Steven’s other three wives were up on a ridge, in the trees, awaiting his signal.

  He tried to send Sabina a message. No grand sacrifice plays, Sabina. We can handle this! But he didn’t have her Divination magic abilities. There was little chance she would hear him.

  Zoey roared. Steven exploded into his True Form and grabbed the werebear before she went dashing off to attack the Morphlings coming at them from the ocean. “No, Zoey. We all are low on Animus, so we have to be smart. Stay with us. We’re going to form a defensive barrier around Mouse. Only strike when I say.”

  Zoey let out a whimper. Then Steven told them the rest of his plan. They had a little time before the dozen dragons flew in, so they would take out the other threats in the meantime. Each kill would replenish his Escort’s Animus.

  “Magica Defensio!” Merlin’s daughter had vast stores of mystical energy. Tessa created two shields, one for magic and one for physical attacks. She sank the torch into her leather satchel. She then whipped out her Peacekeepers, long pistols from another world. Runes on the barrels glowed pink. Was that new?

  “Tell our
snipers to wait on my signal,” Steven ordered. “Mouse, stand with Zoey, in the middle, but stay small and out of sight. I’ll take the hits. Aria, eliminate as many of those Morphlings as you can. If possible, I’d like to use the ocean as our escape route.”

  Aria whirled. She lengthened as her wings widened. She went racing across the beach toward the ocean as the first of the polar bears emerged, running. The thing was wet. Aria’s ElectroArc liked that a great deal. She fired her Exhalant into that polar bear and into the bears still in the water. Like with the torch, the electricity leapt across the waves, but this energy didn’t reveal secrets; this energy killed.

  That would be more Animus for Aria.

  Still, half a dozen polar bears made it out of the water and raced toward the beach. Tessa moved through Zoey and Mouse, took up one of her big revolvers in her right hand, steadied it with her left, and waited until the Morphlings were in range.

  Steven didn’t need to wait. “Magica Impetim!” He hurled dark tire-sized spinning energy through the air and into the incoming enemies. Two of the polar bears managed to dodge the mystical throwing stars, but a third had his chest blasted into charred meat. It sank to the side. Steven felt the burst of Animus from the kill refill him.

  Three Blackhawk helicopters moved in from the north, in formation, with gunners visible in the open doors of the fuselages. The attack wasn’t staged well. If the bears, the Warlings in the choppers, and the dragons had all hit at the same time, that might’ve been a problem. Maybe. As it was, Steven could deal with his enemies one at a time.

  Aria whirled, dove low, and then came up abruptly, breathing out a cloud of noxious gas as she went. She then soared up and kept going.