“So do you know what you’re studying this year?” Conryu’s question caught her by surprise. Her mind had been wandering and she didn’t even notice when he stopped talking to Kelsie.
“The basics of the four physical elements and advanced light magic. What about you?”
He glanced around as though checking to see if anyone was listening. “I’m studying one on one with the department heads. Dean Blane is going to teach me to fly. How cool is that?”
Maria nearly choked. The department heads were going to train him themselves? “Why?”
“She asked me what I wanted to learn and I thought it would be fun to fly, like riding my bike, but without the bike.”
“No, why are you studying with the department heads?”
“Oh, according to Dean Blane I did so well with Mrs. Umbra that she decided to extend my arrangement to the other elements. Sounds like everyone is pretty stoked to see what I can do. I’m just glad I won’t have to spend hours every week on something I could learn in an afternoon. It got kind of tedious last year.”
Before Maria had a chance to dive into a tirade about learning things in the proper order, the back door opened and the freshmen filed in. It didn’t take long to spot Anya. Maria couldn’t remember meeting anyone as attractive as that girl.
A line formed in front of the tester and one after another the new arrivals found out their aligned element. The hall got a good shaking when Anya touched the earth gem. She was strong, no doubt about that.
When she finished Anya joined them at their table and Conryu pulled her chair out for her.
“No problems?” he asked.
“No, everyone was very nice, and Mrs. Saint stayed close by just in case.”
“Told you. I suppose it was a little anticlimactic since you already knew your aligned element.”
“Not at all,” Anya said. “When I touched the gem at the Ministry, the room didn’t shake like that. I was quite startled.”
“You should have been here last year,” Kelsie said. “When Conryu touched the black gem, it was like the whole room plunged into Hell. There were red eyes everywhere and the temperature must have dropped twenty degrees.”
“Creepy.” Anya shivered.
Conryu grinned. “You think that was bad, you should have seen what happened at my Awakening.”
The door to the kitchen opened and platters of food flew out sparing Maria from having to relive that nightmare. Dinner only lasted an hour or so this year and the next thing she knew Maria was in bed staring at the ceiling.
Tomorrow was her first day of classes and that usually left her excited, but tonight she couldn’t stop thinking about Conryu studying with the department heads. He’d already pulled so far ahead of her. At this rate she’d never catch up.
Yarik gaped like a junior agent making his first visit to the Imperial Palace. Central City sprawled in front of him as he drove down the highway. Massive skyscrapers filled the skyline, taller than anything in New St. Petersburg by a tremendous margin. They’d been driving for a day and a half almost nonstop since acquiring the truck and now they’d almost reached their destination.
Ahead of them a sign indicated a rest area approached, half a mile up the highway. Yarik signaled then pulled off and parked.
“Why are we stopping?” Victor asked.
“I need to figure out where we have to go. If possible, I’d just as soon avoid the city. It’s the nation’s capital and there are bound to be wizards everywhere. Should one of them notice you two and figure out what you are we’ll be in trouble.”
Hedon snorted. “We can kill any wizard that sees us.”
Yarik slapped his forehead. “There are probably dozens if not hundreds of wizards in a city that big. I have great respect for your abilities, but I’m not sure the two of you taking on an entire city is a good bet.”
He dug out his phone and called up the map again. The academy wasn’t actually in the city which worked out well for them. In fact, it sat in the middle of a forest fifty miles northwest. On the downside, the only way to reach it, other than hiking, was by train. Since they couldn’t sneak aboard a train, they’d have to go on foot.
He closed the map and pulled up a text editor that contained numerous facts about the area. It also held the name of an Imperial spy working deep cover in Central. Much as he hated having to go into the city, Yarik needed to get in touch and see what information she had. According to the file the best place to make contact was a tattoo parlor in a rough part of town known as The Bleakes. Hopefully avoiding the city center would reduce their chances of running into any wizards.
“We’re going in. Keep your powers fully suppressed just to be safe.”
Yarik fired up the pickup and pulled back onto the highway. They had the modest good fortune that the area where the spy lived was on this side of the city, so they didn’t have to drive all the way around.
Half an hour later Yarik was weaving his way down crowded city streets. Cars lined both sides of the road, sometimes narrowing it down so only a single vehicle could fit through. Horns honked and drivers swore. It seemed so chaotic after the Empire. Yarik hadn’t seen a single checkpoint. How did the rulers of this country keep track of who went where? Not that the Empire did such a great job in that regard, but at least they made the effort.
Three streets to go until they reached the tattoo parlor. The only authority he’d seen so far was a single city guardsman in a blue uniform and he just walked along on the sidewalk, pausing to occasionally speak to one of the locals. No one even fled in fear when they saw him. He must not have much power.
“Agent, to your right,” Victor said.
Yarik spotted the stylized dragon over the door of the tattoo parlor. That had to be the one he wanted. Half a block up he pulled into a parking spot and the three of them got out.
“Victor, remain with the truck. The last thing we need is for someone to steal it. Hedon, you’re with me.”
They made the short walk back to the tattoo parlor and Yarik pulled the door open. Every sort of image you could think of decorated the shop walls. Two chairs sat in the middle of the main room and a beaded curtain blocked a doorway he assumed led to an office. Behind the counter a fat man in a leather vest eyed them through lowered sunglasses. Every inch of his skin looked like an advertisement for his services. Of the female spy he saw no sign.
“Help you two?” the fat man asked.
“We’re looking for Iris. Word is she does the best dragon tattoos in the city.”
“I do a mean dragon myself.” The fat man twisted his arm to show them a green, fire-breathing monster on his tricep. “Maybe I can do what you need.”
“Your work is excellent,” Yarik said. “However, we had our minds made up that we wanted silver-scaled dragons.”
The artist grimaced. “She’d never let me use one of her exclusive designs. Yo, Iris! You got customers.”
A dark-haired woman in a gypsy skirt and red shirt pushed through the curtain. She had a dragon decorating her face from chin to eyebrow. From the color of her hair and shape of her nose Yarik pegged her as coming from the southern part of the Empire.
“Can’t I even eat lunch in peace, Piers?” Iris asked.
The fat man shrugged. “They asked for a silver dragon. Unless you want to pass up the payday…”
She eyed Yarik more closely. “No, that’s okay. Step back into the office and I’ll show you boys some samples.”
“Thank you.” Yarik and Hedon followed her through the curtain and into a simple office. Art books covered a rusty steel table.
Iris opened one of them and every page had a different dragon design. “Which one do you like?”
Yarik flipped through until he found an exact duplicate to the Imperial seal. “I believe this one will suit me perfectly.”
“A fine choice. Unfortunately, I’m out of the ink I need to do that design. Perhaps a rain check?”
“That’s disappointing, but very well.”
She wrote a note on a small slip of paper. “Excellent, it shouldn’t be more than a day or two.”
Yarik accepted the paper and nodded. She escorted him and Hedon to the door and saw them off. When they were outside Hedon said, “Must we wait two days?”
“No.” Yarik led the way back to the truck. “This isn’t a rain check, it’s an address with ‘eight o’clock’ next to it. We’ll get what we need tonight and be on our way tomorrow.”
4
Unwelcome Guests
General Ivan stood in the front of the bobbing cargo ship that had carried them to Constanta and stared through the thick fog at the barely visible warehouses beyond the docks. The empty hulk of a coast guard cutter floated at one of the piers. The unfortunate sailors had been killed about a month ago while pursuing the czar’s runaway witch. An appalling waste of Imperial assets.
On either side of his ship, two coast guard cutters, perfect twins to the empty one ahead, awaited his orders. The plan was to level the warehouses and destroy any vampires inside before beginning construction on the prefab fortification crowding the ship’s deck.
Ivan took a deep breath of heavy, briny air and grimaced at the rotten-fish stink that permeated everything. The empty city didn’t even have an active fishing fleet, yet the docks still stank. It almost felt like magic, a curse of some sort.
He shook off the distracting thoughts. If he failed to complete the mission, his life was forfeit, he understood that. No one that served in the czar’s court for any length of time held any illusions about their master’s patience. What the czar wanted he got and if you couldn’t get it for him he’d find someone that could.
He’d just begun to wonder where all the birds were when Nosorova marched up to join him. The witch made him nervous. She didn’t fit neatly into his chain of command and anything that didn’t fit was suspect in Ivan’s eyes. That said, he wouldn’t have wanted to attempt this mission without a witch or preferably, several witches, with him.
“Are you planning to stare at it all day or are we going to get started?” Nosorova asked. “Daylight is burning and I’ll need every bit of it to lay out the ward.”
“I was simply getting a feel for the land to determine the best place to construct our fort.”
“You were delaying the inevitable.” Nosorova spoke without any hint of caring about his precarious position. And why should she? The witches were, and always had been, the czar’s favorites.
Ivan unclipped a radio from his belt. “Begin bombardment.”
The cannons of first one then the other cutter boomed. The shells struck a direct hit to one of the warehouses, blowing it sky high. No turning back now. Shots had been fired. They were at war.
The flames of the explosion gave him a better look at the docks. There was a wide flat area twenty yards from the water. That would be a perfect place to build and they wouldn’t have to carry the panels far.
The attacks continued until there wasn’t a place standing big enough to hide a mouse, much less a vampire. The cargo ship advanced as close to shore as possible. Crewmen ran to throw lines. Ivan stood and watched, the silent witch beside him.
When they were secured to the dock Ivan asked, “Do you need anything from me to set your protections in place?”
“All I need is to know where and how large to make the barrier. The sooner the better as it will take hours to fully erect.”
Ivan pointed to the flat spot he’d noted earlier. “Right there. The outer wall will enclose a space forty yards on each side.”
“I’ll enclose a forty-five-yards square, just to be safe. Give me an hour to set the outermost line before you begin unloading.” The witch muttered something and flew toward shore.
Ivan silently cursed the woman. How dare she give orders to a general? But who was he kidding? Of the two of them, he was by far the more expendable.
The ship’s captain strode up to him, his white uniform gleaming in the sun. “Shall we get started, sir?”
“Give her an hour to prepare the area.” Ivan choked the words out.
Down on shore, Nosorova paced and wove her hands through intricate passes. Ivan couldn’t make out what she said, but he assumed it was a spell since every few seconds a golden spark leapt from her hand and struck the ground.
Just shy of an hour later the witch flew into the air and hovered above the construction site. Since she’d moved out of the way he took it as a sign that they could begin working. He gave the signal and the engineers and their teams got started. Cranes raised and lowered massive sections of steel wall while the welders and construction workers put them together. It was an amazing process.
Near dusk, heavy sodium lights flicked on, illuminating the project. The walls were mostly up, but they hadn’t started on the actual fortress yet. At last Nosorova landed beside him at the front of the ship.
“It’s done.” She looked like she’d climbed a mountain without oxygen. “We have fifteen minutes until sunset. Everyone needs to be inside the wards before then.”
“Including the ships’ crews?”
Nosorova looked at him with shadowed eyes. “Anyone you still want breathing in the morning.”
Ivan stared for a moment then decided she meant it. He barked orders into his radio. If anything happened to his workers, he wouldn’t be able to finish the project without returning to the Empire for help. He shuddered to think what the czar might do to him.
In the end they got everyone inside with two minutes to spare. He’d ordered the lights on the ship left on so they wouldn’t be fully in the dark.
The workers had erected a single watchtower and Ivan climbed it along with the witch. He doubted it would take long to discover the efficacy of her wards. If they failed, no one would survive long enough to complain.
“They’re here,” Nosorova said.
Ivan squinted in the dark. A moment later the first dark figure seemed to materialize out of the night. He’d never seen a vampire in person. They didn’t look terribly impressive. Pale figures that seemed to waver, one moment solid and the next mist. One of them, a woman he thought, reached a hand out.
Golden light sparked and she yanked it back.
“It seems your wards are effective,” Ivan said. “Congratulations.”
“Don’t congratulate me yet, the enemy still hasn’t tested them.”
At first Ivan didn’t understand, then four of the vampires gathered in a circle. A sphere of darkness formed between them and they hurled it at the fort. He flinched when a web of golden light flashed into being, but it didn’t break.
Thrice more the vampires tested the fortress’s defenses and thrice more they held. Soon enough the vampires faded back into the darkness. It seemed they would survive the first night at least.
Following the directions provided by his cell phone—Yarik had to admit the electronics available to people outside the Empire certainly put anything they had to shame—he and the dragon-bloods reached a rundown tenement where Iris said to meet her. Looking around the wretched neighborhood Yarik was reminded of home for the first time since falling out of the portal. It made him feel oddly better to know this place of such wealth still had sections of squalor. He preferred not to think about what that said about his twisted psyche.
They got out of the truck and this time Hedon stayed behind. In a place like this Yarik doubted they’d have a vehicle to return to if no one guarded it. A quick scan of the area revealed no threats to Yarik’s limited vision, but given Victor’s calm stride he felt comfortable enough in his analysis.
They marched down the sidewalk to the building’s front door. The moment Yarik pushed it open the stink of garbage and shit washed over him. Swallowing his gorge, Yarik headed for the stairs. The meeting was set for an apartment on the third floor. The sooner they got it over with the better.
Rusty iron steps creaked and crunched under Victor’s weight, but they reached the third landing without crashing through. The apartment they wanted was only a few steps
from the door. Yarik knocked and a moment later the door opened revealing Iris’s face.
“You’re punctual, I’ll give you that.” The door closed and the safety chain slid out. When the door opened again Iris waved them inside. The interior matched the rest of the building, but she had something burning that covered the stink.
“You couldn’t find a nicer place?” Yarik asked.
“I don’t live here. This unit is strictly for quiet meetings. The people living here don’t care about anything beyond their next high. I find that indifference useful. Now, what can I do for you, Agent?”
“How did you know I was an agent?”
She snorted a laugh. “I met enough of you before I left to recognize your type.”
“I didn’t think I was so obvious. Anyway, my mission is to retrieve a girl from the magic school. I hoped you might have some information on the best ways in and out. From the little I’ve seen it looks pretty isolated.”
Iris shook her head. “You’ve been given a fool’s errand. You’ll never get past the wizards, even if you have a dragon-blood to help you.”
“We have other items at our disposal to distract the wizards. I’m confident we can grab the girl, it’s escaping with her that’s the problem. There’s nowhere for a car to approach.”
“No, the only nonmagical form of transportation is the train. If you want any hope of escaping, you’ll need to strike when it’s there unloading supplies. You can force the conductor to bring you to the city where a car will be waiting.”
“That might work. I don’t suppose you know the train’s delivery schedule?”
“In point of fact I do.” Iris went into the apartment’s small bedroom and emerged a few seconds later with a battered notebook. She flipped it open and thumbed through the pages. “Here we go. Supplies go in at midmorning on Sunday, every week, like clockwork. That’s when you strike.”
Yarik frowned. Assuming they set out tomorrow it would take at least two days to hike in. It was Monday, so that left two days to study the layout of the campus and get a feel for the students’ movements. It would be tight, but doable.
Wrath of the Dragon Czar: Aegis of Merlin Book 5 Page 5
