by Liz Ellor
“We need to assess your metabolic rate. Sooner or later, we would have needed to collect this data—”
“Screw that. What about my DNA? What did you change there? What did you find?” Had they found magic in her? Her instincts screamed at her to ask—but she didn’t know if he knew the truth about magic. If there was one piece of discipline she could cling to, it was that Katrina Harris would forever preserve the Seal.
“I’m not a geneticist, Ms. Harris. I can share their findings with you when they arrive—”
“To hell with that. Let me up.” She didn’t have magic, would never have magic, and the loss of it hurt just as badly as it had every day her powerlessness was drummed in during her days as an agent. Indigo, focus on Indigo, she thought. She could still make it back with the information, regain her position, carry out her duty. That meant more to her than any magic. But hope died painfully, and her brain knew two solutions for the pain: alcohol and exercise. There was only one she could persuade the doctor to give her.
The emotions attracted Payaa’s attention. What’s wrong? she asked. Katrina slammed her broken hand flat against the table, and the wave of pain sent the wyvern retreating.
“You have no history of anxiety attacks, and we have no history working with creatures like you. We’re concerned something might have malfunctioned.”
This wasn’t working out as she’d planned. In her rush to get away from Payaa, to keep the Seal and all other vulnerable corners of her mind concealed, she’d convinced them their experiment might have malfunctioned. “Please,” she begged. “I need to move. It’s driving me crazy.” Her body might have been their creation, but it was her home, and she had to know the limitations they’d given her as well as the supposed benefits.
He sighed. “I suppose there’s nothing preventing us from starting in on the physical tests.”
They escorted her back up to the track and told her to run, to take things easy and stop if she felt sick. She made it through a mile and a half before her legs gave out. Stupid. Her lungs felt perfectly fine, but her legs were trembling. After all she’d given up, did she really have to add running to the list?
“A good deal of the weakness you feel is a side effect of spending five days in bed,” Garyali told her. “With time and practice, you might build up the muscle mass to run long distances again.”
Might. “It’ll never be the same.” She wished Kyle was there, or anyone from home. It felt like a wall had descended between her and her whole world, leaving her stranded with strangers in a strange body.
You aren’t alone, Payaa whispered in the back of her head.
Shut up. You’re part of the problem.
She felt the wyvern pull back from the link, hurt. Damn, that creature was sensitive! How could you grow up as a lab rat in a place like this and still believe there was some good in people, that this random woman dropped into your mind wanted to be your friend? Katrina liked her friends loud, sarcastic, and distant enough not to ask about depressing stuff like the jobs she’d lost or the now-absent scars on her thighs or why she didn’t want to come by the bar. What had Dr. Harper been thinking when she joined them?
“Ms. Harris?” Captain O’Brien held out his gun. “Would you like to try shooting?”
She donned ear protection and took the weapon over to the range. Her eyes locked in on the target. The world shrank down to a pinprick. She saw the angle at which the bullet would fly, her brain informing her of the breeze from the heaters and the weight of gravity.
Five shots thudded into the center of the target.
A warm glow built up in her stomach. This, she could do. This was a skill Indigo would want, especially when they learned what they were facing here. I’ll deliver the enemy’s most potent weapon into their hands—
“Look!” O’Brien shouted.
She turned to the window, where Tayamlaa looped and spun like a car on a roller coaster. Kyle clung to her back, lashed tight to the harness.
That’s what we’re up against.
She’d never seen anyone look quite so happy.
“This will go easier if you talk with me, Ms. Harris,” Vasilyev told her. “You had a panic attack when faced with mounting your wyvern. That’s not supportive of our goals at Wyvernhall. We’d like our pilots to remain healthy and productive. And I think we can make inroads on both today. I’d like you to tell me why you reacted so strongly to Payaa’s presence in your mind. What did you see there that angered you?”
“I’d like to see you try waking up with a stranger in your head. Isn’t comfortable.” Especially when your mind’s a mental Chernobyl, and someone wants to come in and pet the feral dogs. She could think honestly—Payaa was off hunting, out of range for sharing any but the most extreme emotions.
“So the results of your transfer surprised you?” His eyes flickered over her, not with the clinical detachment of the other scientists, but with hunger. Katrina wasn’t sure what for, but she didn’t want to find out.
“Pretty surprising.” She hedged her answer. “No one was sure what would really happen.”
“Why did you go along?” Still hungry. Questioning, now. Interrogating her. Did he suspect? Stay vague and irreverent. “You must have known the risks.”
Nothing’s as risky as standing on that bluff with that gun in my hand. “Let’s just say Dr. Harper made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”
“Were you forced into it?” He sounded concerned now. Fuck that. No one forced Katrina Harris to do anything. No one got to be concerned about her but her. She grudgingly accepted that some discreet counseling might be in order, considering how she’d wound up here. But they’d be staying square in her comfort zone
“Nope.”
The concerned look remained on his face as he turned up the white noise machine and flipped off the tape recorder he was using to document the session. His eyes ran all over the walls. Finally, he gulped and spoke.
“Did Indigo send you?”
“Indigo?” She sat straight up, suddenly realizing how large Vasilyev was. He’d be a threat even if he turned out not to be a Descendant. “What are you talking about?”
“I saw you when they arrested me. At their headquarters in Queens. You came by to see your brother, Shawn Harris, the one they call the Living Flame. I recognized you when Harper brought you in, and I thought you’d defected. But—please, say they sent you to relieve me. I can’t keep living with this fear in my mind. Please!”
He stopped, desperate hope flashing in his eyes. Shit. What should she say? Whatever makes him spill the most information. He could be a desperate informant. Or this could all be a test. Who better than a trusted therapist to root out traitors?
“I take it you don’t like my brother?” she said, cautiously.
“If you’ll excuse me, miss, he’s a hard man to like. My son got spotted in a public shift. We’re polar bears, him and I. He only did so to scare off a mugger.” His thick Russian accent filled his voice. “Indigo killed the mugger before he could go to the media, and they knew we were the only family of bears in the area, so they came for us. I said it was me who did it.”
Katrina stifled a frown. Protecting lawbreakers who shifted in public only enabled them to risk the Seal again. But at least he’d had the honesty to register his family when he’d moved into the area. Most Descendants ignored Indigo’s registration law. Bears. If only the kid had possessed the balls needed to go for the kill. Shapeshifters’ magic greatly enhanced their physical skills. A bear would have the strength to crush a person like a can.
“I thought—well, you know what they do to lawbreakers, but I was second generation and fluent in the language, so Indigo sent me to work for and spy on the Father of Witches.” He lowered his voice while invoking the title. “He sent me here.” He reached down around his neck to pull out a brightly painted saint’s medallion. Popping it open, he revealed a small flash drive. “I’ve been using this to communicate with Agent Harris.”
“My brother kn
ows this place exists?”
“For the last few months, yes. I told him about your arrival the second I saw your name on the medical records. He hasn’t responded.”
“Okay.” He’d be coming for her, then. Anaïs would have tried her best to talk him out of it, but Shawn loved saving people—especially her. She couldn’t have him ruin her moment, let him take credit for smuggling out information on the enemy weapons. And she sure as hell couldn’t let him loose in a place so isolated that preserving the Seal wouldn’t be his first priority.
“Did Dr. Harper force you to come here? Or did you come to take my place?” His eyes shone with pathetic hope. Katrina spared a second of irritation at the thought that Indigo had sent an unwilling person on this mission when there was someone perfectly willing to volunteer. But he might be lying. She could report him to Dr. Harper and cement her position in the doctor’s trust. But if Vasilyev was telling the truth, she would cost him his life. If her own quest to escape failed, Indigo would need his eyes on the ground.
Taking a middle road would be best. She could always change her mind. “May I?” He handed her the flash drive. She palmed it and slid it into her pocket. “You work for me now, doctor.”
“What?”
“You heard me. I defected, shithead. You’re going to get me a handle of vodka by sundown or I’ll go to Dr. Harper.” Not that she planned to drink it, at least not all at once, but it was a good thing to keep for emergencies. Besides, it was the typical move you’d expect from a recovering alkie in a stressful situation. She doubted Dr. Harper would find the blackmail suspicious at all, and she’d neatly covered her own ass while finding a way to potentially contact her brother.
The whites of Vasilyev’s eyes drowned in a sea of brown, indicating an angry polar bear was only seconds away.
“We’re still under the Seal here,” Katrina pointed out, throwing open the door so other scientists could see in. “Leave the goods outside my suite.”
A second physical showed she was in perfect health, and, as her medical records featured no history of anxiety attacks, they sent her back up to the roof. Dr. Harper had been ducking out from the terrace to the gym for hours, thawing her fingers over a heater. Her clipboard held pages of notes. She’d recorded all their interactions with their wyverns—at least, if H and W meant Harris and Winters.
“Sudden acrophobia all dealt with?” Dr. Harper asked. “Are you ready to go out there and fly?”
Katrina shrugged. “Suppose so. Pity Payaa’s off hunting.”
“Then you can go watch Kyle and Tayamlaa. They’re doing target practice. Pay attention. Our war won’t win itself.” The doctor hugged herself as she looked out the windows. “If you’re wondering when the appropriate time was to thank me for the great gift I bestowed on you, it was the moment you laid eyes on your wyvern. I’ll accept now.”
“I’d have preferred a gift card. Those can’t invade your psyche.”
Phyllis glared at her. “I hate it when people are flippant about serious matters.”
“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”
“Your rations have been cut by a third. Do you wish to continue, or go to the roof?”
Katrina went. You’re such a dirty hypocrite. No, worse. You’re just some weak asshole who thinks she’s tougher than all the other assholes. What have you done with your life that’s ever benefited anyone? That same rationale had chased her into the woods with Kyle and closed her fingers around that gun. Before he’d flipped out, Vasilyev had told her to recognize patterns of thought that lead back to those dark places, and she was trying to do just that. Still, she knew those thoughts had a point, and she wanted it to be a constructive one.
Kyle and Tayamlaa circled the roof, making long, elegant, lazy loops. A whole crowd of security officers watched the pair fly. Captain O’Brien threw rolled-up socks full of sand for Kyle to shoot. His bullets found their mark every time.
“May I?” Katrina asked the captain. He gave her a ball. She donned protective earmuffs and dropped it over the edge.
Tayamlaa, at the height of her arch in the sky, folded her wings and flipped her body downward with a stroke of her powerful legs. Katrina froze, thinking Kyle would fall—but he kept his seat as they plummeted, her wings parallel to the slope of the mountain. Grains of yellow sand exploded outward as a gunshot hit her ears. Tayamlaa spread her wings, flying upside-down for a moment. When she was clear of the mountain slope, she flipped over with a single sweeping push.
Katrina had watched Kyle ride horses at the family farm. He’d fallen left and right, refusing to go any faster than a trot. How is he doing this? Tayamlaa banked; Kyle leaned into the turn before she started to move. Tayamlaa flipped; Kyle pressed himself flat against her back. Had he done what Payaa had asked of her and completely opened his mind to his wyvern?
“Watch this.” O’Brien threw three balls at once. Kyle’s next shot passed through two in a line. His second got the third ball a heartbeat later. “Fastest shot I’ve ever seen.”
“Helps he’s crazy,” Katrina muttered, noting the face piece with ear protection they’d clipped on Tayamlaa. Strokes of her wings beat against the air. Kyle shouted in exhilaration when they landed on the roof, wrapping his arm fiercely around Tayamlaa’s neck.
“Nice shooting!” Katrina shouted, but he wasn’t looking at her. All his attention was focused on his wyvern as he laughed at a joke she hadn’t heard. It wasn’t until he started pulling off Tayamlaa’s harness he noticed she was there.
“Tayamlaa calls me Quickfingers,” he said. “I’m the fastest shot she’s ever seen.”
What do wyverns know about shooting? she thought, but then remembered the bullet scars on Payaa’s wings, and shut up.
“Can’t wait to see them on the big guns,” O’Brien muttered, as Kyle ducked behind Tayamlaa to undo more straps.
“Big guns?” Katrina asked.
“The engineering department is working on them. Anti-aircraft weapons they can mount on a wyvern. Something light enough for you to handle.” He frowned. “What did you think you’d been recruited for? War’s coming. We’ll need air forces of our own.”
“And the Father doesn’t want to buy planes?” She forced herself to chuckle. “Old fashioned, is he?”
“I’d advise you not to talk about my father,” the captain said. “The wyverns are more agile than a plane. He believes they’re capable of winning this war. I trust him.”
A shiver ran through her body. “Lots of people are going to die.”
“Indigo has wound itself so tightly into the fabric of your country the two can’t be separated peacefully.” Seamus squeezed the handle of his gun. “The pyromancers tell us normal folk will turn against Descendants if the Seal is broken. I say let them come.”
This is where wars come from. She’d heard talk like this before, from criminals who wanted to justify their ways. Folk like him, they’ve given up on co-existing. They think they’re better than the rest of humanity, think it’s just terrible having to hold back on their magic all because its very existence endangers 99.9% of people on this planet. This was no crazy backwoods witch speaking, but a man with a small army behind him and the powers of a Valve at his disposal. And if the Valve believed the wyverns could take on planes, he probably had a damn good reason for it. This is why we need Indigo.
As the officers swarmed around Kyle and Tayamlaa, shouting congratulations and praising his performance, she ducked back into the Eyrie and fetched some rope from her suite.
The town at the foot of the mountain was mostly deserted by the time she managed to scale the locked gate and head on down. All the kids were at school, and most of the adults at work in the fortress. Dogs barked as she passed their houses. A young man took one look at her strange face and ducked away.
The town consisted of two rings of buildings around a central square. It was there she stopped, facing the glass-enclosed bulletin board that announced high school plays, a showing of Rocky at the church, and a for-sal
e snowmobile. Her eyes darted back and forth over the ground, reading the bootprints in the freshly-dusted snow. Three sets of prints were from new shoes; only one was a men’s size eight.
Katrina followed them around the back of the town library and towards an abandoned shed. The second she stepped into the shadows, a strong arm reached out and lashed around her neck, dragging her back into the shadows. She coughed and gasped, and then the pressure relented. She turned.
This was Shawn as she’d never seen him before, and it just because she was looking with her new eyes. His muscles were tensed, like a wildcat about to strike, and bulky armor stood out under his jacket. She’d seen him pissed, seen him fight as a young man, but time had stripped all the humor from him. This Shawn had eyes that said he’d kill without regret, and kill as many as he needed to reach his goal.
She could see now why they called him the Living Flame.
“It’s me,” she gasped. “Your sister.”
“Katrina?” His voice broke. Past the crease in his brow and looseness of his cheeks, she saw the wide-eyed face he’d worn that day twenty years ago when he’d learned his parents were dead. Then he pulled back on his agent’s face. “What did these monsters do to you?”
“Nothing I didn’t ask for.” More or less. “You have to leave. They’ll kill you—”
“I go nowhere without you.” He kept his voice low, but urgent. His hand cupped her chin, exploring her modified features. “It’s my fault you’re here. I let that bitch get away.”
“Can the guilt,” she whispered, fiercely. “I chose this. They were going to experiment on somebody. Now Indigo will know what they can do.”
“You did this for Indigo?” His eyes narrowed. She hoped that was just a reaction to the shadows. With her new vision, the darkness didn’t affect her like it did him.
“You’d have done the same.” Wouldn’t he? “And the stuff I’ve learned—Shawn, they’ve got a mole inside Indigo! They’re building an army for the Father of Witches! They’re—”
“Katrina!” He ran his bare fingers through his hair. Steam rose from his skin and drifted up the wood panels of the surrounding buildings. She’d seen his control slip like that only once before. “You … you take too many risks. Come on. We’re leaving.”
