The Awakened World Boxed Set

by William Stacey

  "There's more," Nathan said. "I didn't want to consider it, but she went missing from the hospital an hour after the chaplain and I came to give her the news. Just up and bolted. It looks bad, looks guilty bad."

  "Maybe somebody took her," Angie offered, but it sounded weak to her ears. It would take a team of men to take Erin Seagrave anywhere, even with a broken arm.

  "Why are the Norties looking for her?" Marshal asked. "Why risk killing you? They must know that would draw my wrath. Maybe they're trying to silence her..."

  "Angie," Nathan said, his voice firm. "Have you seen Erin? Do you know where she is, where she might be? If you do, please tell me. We have to find her before the Norties do."

  She shook her head. "I don't have a clue, Nathan. We weren't close."

  He nodded.

  "The police," Marshal said, "believe someone matching her description was seen near your apartment last night."

  Her brow furrowed in confusion. "Why ... no, that's a mistake."

  "Be that as it may, if she contacts you, please tell Nathan immediately. She might need help, but we also need to consider the possibility she's turned."

  Angie touched his forearm. "Sir, there's no way. Not a chance. This feels wrong."

  He patted her hand, smiled, and rose. "Don't dwell on it, Angela. I promised your parents I'd take care of you, and I've done a lousy job of it so far. I'm going to leave you now with Nathan. He has an offer I'd like you to consider."

  "Yes, sir."

  He bent over and kissed her cheek and then walked out, his bodyguards and aides surrounding him.

  Nathan dragged a plush chair next to Angie's bed and sat, swinging his sword scabbard out of the way.

  "What offer?" she asked.

  "Corrigan took over as S2 when you left."

  She knew Sam Corrigan well enough. He was a capable young officer. "He's a good choice."

  "That's what I thought, but after the disaster with the Seagraves ... well, he's not you. I want you to come back, where you belong."

  "Where I belong?" She stared at him in confusion, and then she felt herself becoming angry and emotional, which she absolutely didn't want but couldn't stop.

  "We're family, you and I, and the old man, too. You never should have mustered out."

  "You kicked me out, remember?"

  He glanced down at his hands. "I know. I was wrong to do that. I was angry when I heard about your shade." When he looked up again, his blue eyes were hard, uncompromising. "I was pissed you went back to Fresno, to that Fey witch. You should have come to me for help. Never her."

  He practically spit out the last word. She knew Nathan hated Char for kicking him out of her school, but she was surprised the years hadn't softened that anger. "Nathan, you don't get it. It wasn't a shade. It was never a shade. It was a demon. I couldn't live with it anymore. You don't know. You can't imagine what it was like."

  "Angie. There are no such things as demons."

  She ran her fingers over her face, looking away. There was no point in trying to explain to him, so she simply whispered, "I did what I had to do."

  "Okay." He leaned forward and put his hand on her knee with only the sheet between their flesh. "It doesn't matter. I was wrong to freak out, and ... well, a spaded mage kind of freaked out the other mages. I thought I had to do something.” This time he smiled. “Trust me, Marshal was not happy with me when he heard."

  "Spaded?"

  His smile grew. Damn him for being so good-looking. "Screw the other mages, okay? You come and work for me as S2. You can still do the life-sense thing, right?"

  She nodded, a brave smile on her lips, hope in her heart. The Bunker was home, as much a home as Char's zoo had been, more so because she'd be with people, not Fey.

  He left his hand on her knee, his touch warm. Was he coming on to her? "I know you're still struggling with the crash. Come work it out with us. PTSD has been kicking the shit out of soldiers since the first caveman killed his neighbor with a club. You'll do better among your own kind."

  She couldn't help it, and tears flowed down her cheeks. She nodded, quickly and happily. "Okay."

  "If we can get past this thing, maybe I can even help you with your shade problem." He rose and moved to the door.

  "What do you mean?" She ran her fingers over the tears, taking care to avoid her nose.

  He chuckled. "That's right. You don't know."

  "Know what?"

  He stood framed in the doorway, handsome as an eagle, his hand on the hilt of his katana, a roguish smile on his face. And, more than anything else, a self-satisfied gleam in his eye. "I can bond shades myself now. We don't need the Fey anymore. I'm even training my own mages."

  As he swept out the door and down the hall, the young blond mage at his heels, Angie stared in wonder.

  He can bond shades?

  The world had just become very different.

  As the sun beat down on the parking lot, Nathan stalked toward his vehicle, one of the Bunker's armored sedans. A second sedan sat beside his, with his personal bodyguard detachment, four assault-rifle-armed soldiers waiting for him. Right now, they stood near the vehicle's bumper, smoking and laughing. Both vehicles were dark green, and a pennant flew from the front of his, identifying it as the vehicle of the commander of the Home Guard, not that everyone in the city wouldn't know whose vehicles they were anyhow.

  After the Awakening, there remained only two types of motor vehicles that still ran: those that had been shielded by the magical backlash the dragons had released over Mount Fuji and those that were too old to have electronics. Every other vehicle, every other piece of unshielded electronics, had fried. These vehicles had been in the Bunker, warehoused by Marshal.

  At his approach, the men's postures went erect as they prepared to move out. He waved a hand at them. "Relax, guys. Finish your smokes. I'm not sure where we're going just yet."

  The men relaxed, but Lieutenant Ella Summers, walking at his side, faltered a half step. She was one of the new mages, one of those he was training, and had potential, but she could also be annoyingly immature. She opened the driver's door and climbed in behind the wheel while he sat in the back, brooding.

  "So that's her, huh?" she asked, meeting his eyes in the rear-view mirror. "The famous Angel of Death? Didn't look all that dangerous."

  He snorted. "Jealousy is unattractive. And don't call her that. It pisses her off. Besides, it's all bullshit anyway. The Norties think she's some supermage, but she just survived a helicopter crash and the resulting fire—lucky, but not special. Truth is, she was always really, really weak in magic—and that was when she still had a shade."

  Ella shivered. "Freaks me out that she'd actually want to exorcise her shade. What a loser."

  He glanced out the window, watching citizens walk by the hospital. A few rode horses, others rode horse-drawn wagons. Several very old trucks, belching black smoke, rumbled past. "That loser was attacked by four assassins last night, one of whom was a mage. Not only did she survive, but three of them are dead. And she was a damned good S2. You might want to close your mouth and think before you talk."

  "Sorry, sir."

  Was Angie telling the truth about Erin? Probably, but the eyewitness in the police report had been way too specific—a tall, solidly built redhead with her arm in a cast hanging around Angie's apartment, staking it out. That had to be Erin Seagrave. But why was she looking for Angie? That made zero sense. And what the hell were they doing with a bomb last night?

  His irritation grew. He needed to find Erin quickly—before some overzealous Horse Cop shot her. If Angie was lying, would he even be able to tell? That Fey bitch Chararah hadn't been like a mother to Angie but was her actual adopted mother. Where were Angie's loyalties? Once, he would have sworn they were with him and the unit. Now he wasn't so sure—especially after she had run off to Char and begged her to exorcise her shade. What a waste.

  His soldiers, still standing about their sedan, laughed at something, and he sighed, mis
sing the easy camaraderie of men with no real responsibilities. Sometimes it was tough to be the boss, but it did have its perks.

  Ella started the engine.

  "I need to think," he said curtly, still staring out the window.

  "Yes, sir." She killed the engine, her hands gripping the wheel.

  He cleared his throat, frowning at her in the mirror. Her face flashing crimson, she opened her door and hurried out of the vehicle, rushing around to the passenger door across from him. She slipped inside the sedan, closing the door behind her. He unbuckled his weapon's belt, placed it on the floor near his feet, and stretched his legs out, spreading them as he leaned back, his thoughts a whirlwind. What to do, what to do?

  Without a word, she undid his pants, pulled his half-flaccid penis out of his underwear, and wrapped her mouth around it. The men glanced over, saw what was happening, and shared a smile among themselves. Within a minute, he was rock hard, her mouth wet and warm, his synapses firing on all cylinders.

  He always did his best thinking while getting head.

  When he came a few minutes later, he knew what he had to do.

  Chapter 7

  Early in the afternoon, hours after Marshal and Nathan had left, Angie sat in bed, her back propped up by pillows as she tried to read a frayed paperback that one of the nurses had given her—Her Loyal Wolf Lover. The cover showed a woman kneeling beside a large white wolf, running her fingers through its fur. She sighed and put down the book. It wasn't just that it was silly, but it also reminded her of the Seagraves, even if no one had ever actually seen them as werewolves. Besides, she couldn't concentrate with her thoughts clunking in her skull. Nathan had been right about the hospital wanting to keep her a few days for observation. And, just as Nathan had promised, a Horse Cop sat outside her door, chatting up the nurses.

  Kim, a diminutive nurse with large blue eyes, short, curly red hair, and an overabundance of freckles, brought her lunch. "Hungry, hon?"

  "What is it?" Whatever it was, it smelled terrible.

  "Food," Kim replied, setting down a plastic tray containing a handful of sad greens, half an apple, and a plate of brownish-green gelatinous paste—the source of the stench.

  "Smells like feet."

  "Ha," barked Kim, flashing a mouthful of teeth. "Feet are for dinner." She stood beside Angie, hands on hips, one eyebrow arched. "Eat up."

  Angie sighed and then ate. It tasted a teensy bit better than it looked and smelled, and she did need the calories. Kim left her, a satisfied look on her features.

  A doctor visited her in the afternoon, a twenty-something who had probably learned all he knew by understudying a real doctor. She felt bad a moment after thinking that. He smiled earnestly and listened to her breathing with his cold stethoscope on the skin of her back as she leaned forward on her bed.

  To be fair, there were no more medical schools. Even the city's schools for the children taught little more than the absolute essentials: reading and writing and the rudiments of science. Most kids learned a trade in their early teens and kept to that for the rest of their lives. Everyone had to contribute. You live in the city, you help the city had been the mantra of her youth.

  It should have been: If you don’t have useful skills, you don't get into the city at all. When Marshal and the military had first established the protected zones, hundreds of thousands—maybe more—had been turned away to fend for themselves. How many had starved? How many had become Ferals?

  How many had the Ferals eaten?

  "Cough," the doctor said, and she did.

  In truth, the young doctor was more than competent, making her feel like an ass for doubting him. He took her pulse and checked both her nose and her ribs, proclaiming both would be fine in a few weeks. The ear, she learned, was nothing, a cut closed with six stitches. If she had been a second or two slower breaking free of her attackers, she was certain she'd have lost it, lost everything.

  The doctor left, telling her he'd visit again later, leaving her alone with her thoughts.

  What had she done to that man, or rather, how had she done that to him? She had taken his life force, she knew that, had felt it flow into her through her palm where she touched his chest, becoming raw mana. The same thing had occurred during the incident six months ago. She didn't want to accept it, but there was no avoiding it. There was something very wrong with her, something that manifested when her life was in danger.

  At the time, she had been certain it had been the Other, the shade-like entity that had possessed her that day in Char’s sanctum so long ago. But the Other was gone, exorcised by Char six months ago, so it couldn’t have been it.

  Maybe it was her. Just the thought made the small hospital room grow darker.

  No one had believed her about the crash and what had happened afterward; she could see it in their eyes. Nathan had insisted it was stress, that the fire from the crashed helicopter had set off the hidden Nortie ammo dump buried beneath the villa—not her, sure as hell not her magic. But it had been her. Fire didn't move like that, like it was alive, going after the Nortie soldiers—and they sure as hell blamed her. She had become as infamous as the Seagraves.

  And then there had been the stable hand.

  She had taken that man's life energy last night and used it to power her spell—and not for the first time. And no matter what Nathan or the police said about a bomb, her Shockwave spell had ripped him apart; she was certain of it. Its power had been exhilarating, breathtaking. She had cast a staggeringly powerful spell.

  So why aren't you dead?

  She should be. All living creatures emanated mana into the air about them. Mages could draw upon that energy, pull traces of it into their own bodies, and then use it to cast spells. But doing so altered its properties, made it dangerous to the mage using it. It was lethal if they used too much or too often. That was why mages needed shades, otherworldly entities that bonded within them. The shades consumed the lethal side effects of the mana. But her shade—the Other—had been exorcised by Char after the crash.

  She had often wondered if the Other was even a shade, fearing it was a demon. Char insisted it was a shade, not a demon, but would she have told Angie if it were? And would a succubus even consider such a thing a demon? Many people thought Char was a demon, stealing the life force of her lovers. Would she lie to me?

  The more she thought about it, the more worked up she became. Her heart pounded like a drum, the room growing dimmer and more restrictive about her. After the crash, she had blamed the Other for what had happened. But if she had done the same thing last night—after the Other had been exorcised, then…

  Then I killed all those people.

  Angie saw them again, all their faces, especially the stable hand. Once more, she saw the flames spread out, like fire snakes, swerving and moving on their own, hunting and killing.

  She was breathing too quickly, becoming lightheaded, but she couldn't calm down. The more she thought about it, the more certain she was that she was the monster. Pain lanced through her chest, and she wheezed for air, spots of light dancing about her vision. She staggered to her feet and made it as far as the doorway before she fell hard.

  The cop, sitting on a chair, lurched to his feet. "Help!"

  Nurses rushed to her, carried her to her bed. The Horse Cop stood in the doorway. "What should I—"

  Angie gasped, unable to breathe. Dying, I'm dying.

  "Get out of the way," the young doctor said as he pushed past the much larger cop.

  They sat her up. One held her hand, another rubbed her back. The young doctor's face was in front of hers, his hands on her shoulders, forcing her to look at him. "Angie, breathe."

  "Can't ... can't." Her chest tightened; her terror welled. "Dying."

  "You can," he said. "It's a panic attack. You're not dying."

  Then he began to breathe with her, his breath long and slow. She tried to match his breathing but couldn't at first. He continued, out and in, slow, long breaths. Finally, she mirrored
his breathing, not well, but well enough to swallow mouthfuls of air, to slow down her racing heart. The pain and tightness slipped away, and she lay back on the bed, panting, her skin flushed.

  "You've had these before, haven't you?" the doctor asked, his voice surprisingly soothing.

  She nodded, rubbing her chest, not able to form words yet.

  "Well, try to rest. Take a nap. Whatever you were thinking about, think of something else."

  They left her, but when she closed her eyes, she saw the stable hand's face again.

  Just before she had murdered him.

  Angie dozed a bit, not long. A different nurse brought her dinner, but she only picked at it. A new Horse Cop took the place of the first, an older man with kind eyes and a warm smile. As the sun went down, the nurses lit kerosene lamps. There was a generator in the hospital, but it was far too costly to run just for lights. She closed her eyes, her mind racing, but soon she slipped into a dreamless sleep. A blessing.

  When she woke, Kim's freckled face was before hers as the nurse roughly shook her shoulder, for once not smiling and her eyes darker than Angie remembered them. A single candle burned on her night table.

  "Wha... what's going on?" Angie said, her thoughts a jumbled fog.

  "Fine, everything's fine," the other woman said sharply, her voice oddly accented. Just for a moment, there had been what looked like malice in her eyes, but then it was gone. "Here," she said, thrusting a pill into Angie's mouth without asking. Then she put a glass of water against Angie's lips. "Drink, now!"

  So she did, swallowing the pill.

  "Sleep," Kim said, a self-satisfied smile curling her lips as she took her candle and slipped out of the room, the hallway dark and empty.

  Angie, a feeling of uneasiness dogging her, lay back and closed her eyes. Magic, she had sensed magic. But how was that possible? No, just your imagination, she told herself as she drifted back to sleep, a single thought veering past her consciousness: where was the Horse Cop?