The Awakened World Boxed Set

by William Stacey

  "What a strange road you walk upon, Angela Harriet Ritter. You carry many amazing titles: source mage. Daughter of a Fey druid. Bearer of an ancient power. Any one of those titles would make you unique beyond the understanding of your kind, yet now I bestow upon you one more: I name you dragon-marked. I suspect you will be the last of your kind to bear such an honor, mayhap a burden."

  "I don't understand."

  "When the time comes, you will. For now, take as much of the water from this pool as you can bear. You will need it for my champion."

  "I—"

  The dragon dropped beneath the surface of the lake, disappearing as quickly as it had appeared. A wave of ice-cold water washed over Angie and the others, who, free of the dragon's magic now, began to cough and move.

  Rowan placed his hand on Angie's shoulder, leaning on her, his breathing rushed as if he had just sprinted a mile. "We need to talk."

  "How much did you—"

  "All of it."

  Chapter 36

  Casey towered over Angie, his face incredulous. "Goddamn, Angie-baby. I can't believe you talked to that thing. And not just talked, you freaking scolded it." He barked in laughter and then hugged her so hard he lifted her feet off the ground, crushing her against his rocklike chest.

  "Urph," she grunted. "Let me go." They had all returned to the garage, practically running from the underground cavern and up the stairs. Now they all gathered about her, their faces flushed with excitement. "You guys heard everything."

  "Every word," Erin said.

  "So now we know who, and more importantly, what, Q is." Tavi's voice was flushed with awe. "And I came here looking for a Fey lord. How does a man, even a were-jaguar, end up serving something like that?"

  "Are you sure he's even a man?" Casey asked. "All I heard was a lot of talk about champions and special powers."

  "He's as much a man as you are," Angie said. "I'm certain of it." And she was, although she couldn't explain why.

  "If you say so." Casey sniffed. "Gotta say. Don't much care for dragon magic. Never felt so helpless in my life."

  Jay shook his head. "Couldn't have done anything anyhow. You see how big it was? Bullets just would have pissed it off."

  Angie opened her left hand and stared at the tear-shaped outline on her palm. It was barely visible now. She made a fist, throwing her shoulders back and inhaling deeply. "Look, you can still take the truck and drive north. This is something I—"

  "Would you stop making decisions for us, Angie?" Rowan rounded on her, moving into her personal space. She resisted the urge to move away and met his stare with defiance. A second later, he sighed, his eyes hard and cold. "That bitch, Mother Smoke Heart, murdered our brother. Nobody kills a Seagrave and gets away with it. Looks to me like the giant winged snake has just given us our chance for payback."

  "Goddamned right," muttered Casey, his eyes flashing with fervor. "I'm all the fuck in for a bit of payback."

  Erin touched her forearm. "We're coming with you," she said with conviction.

  "All the way," Jay said, nodding. "We owe it to Lewis."

  Tavi stepped forward, her expression worried but laced with a hint of conviction. "If there's even a small chance Morgan is alive, then I'm coming too."

  Jay grinned at her. "You're all right, Octavia. You're all right."

  "Besides," said Rowan, the ghost of a smile on his lips, "even if we didn't owe it to Lewis, we Seagraves don't let family risk their lives alone. And even without the Seagrave name, you're one of us now."

  The tension flushed out of Angie’s limbs, making her knees buckle. She grasped at Erin's arm for balance, her emotions surging. "Thank you."

  "That's it?" asked Tavi, pointing to the aerial photo on the table before them of a thick forest in the mountains of Baja California. "That's Zolin?"

  "No, that’s the entrance to the cave system," Angie said, leaning over the table across from her. The aerial photos, just printed out by Erin, sat atop a large pre-Awakening road map of Baja California that they had found on a shelf with hundreds of other rolled-up maps. "According to Tec's files, Zolin is an Olmtec temple built underground."

  "A temple that no one's ever found before?" Tavi asked, her voice ringing with skepticism.

  It was several hours after the discussion with the dragon, early afternoon now, and Angie and the others had found a chamber Tec must have used as a personal study or workspace. Bookshelves filled this room, stuffed with notebooks and journals, as well as old books in languages Angie didn't recognize and even older-looking scrolls that she was afraid to touch for fear they'd fall apart.

  There was a computer desk and printer, and when she had touched its keyboard, the monitor had flashed to life, a blinking cursor awaiting her input. When she typed "Zolin" into the hard drive's search function, several dozen search results appeared. Erin sat before the computer now, printing out more files. Her brothers were loading weapons, ammo, and other supplies into one of the armored trucks, ignoring the transport truck they had been preparing earlier. If they were going into action, Rowan insisted they'd be better off taking the armored and armed all-terrain vehicle.

  The first file they had opened held the aerial photos and map coordinates in Baja California for Zolin. Tec had prepared a dossier on the site, but there was little within it other than the pre-Awakening aerial photos and dozens of missing-persons reports filed by the Mexican authorities some decades earlier. According to the locals, this region was cursed.

  Cursed or not, the mountains sat at the southern tip of the Baja Peninsula at an altitude of more than five thousand feet. The entire mountain chain was thick forests of oak and pine. Even if the roads were passable, which was highly suspect, it would be a bitch to move through.

  "They probably killed anyone who's ever come near it," Angie said. "There are hundreds of missing-persons reports filed by the Mexican authorities. Since the Awakening, there'd be no way of knowing if there were more. They could have murdered thousands of people for all we know."

  "Probably did," Erin said bitterly.

  "I think Tec must have been planning a visit to this place or else thought he might need to go there some day," Angie said.

  "Angie," said Erin. "How far?"

  Angie considered the large map beneath the aerial photo, mentally calculating the distance. As she did, her hopes of a speedy rescue sank. "About thirteen hundred kilometers."

  Erin closed her eyes and ran her fingers over her face, sighing.

  "There's plenty of diesel," Angie said. "We can make it in a day or two if we drive nonstop."

  "Through Aztalan territory?" Tavi asked, her eyes reflecting her disapproval. "If we try to drive an armored vehicle through their land, we're going to run into roadblocks." She shook her head. "They watch their borders as closely as we do, and nobody is gonna miss an armored vehicle."

  Angie leaned back, drumming her fingers on the table, her frustration mounting. "Okay, then we fly. Your people still have the Shrike, right? You're the acting Mago Commandante, so order them to let us take it."

  "Not going to work, Angie," Erin said. "Fuel. If we had more, then maybe, but…"

  Before Angie could answer, Jay swept into the room, flashing a smile at the women and running a hand back through his long hair. He really was too good-looking for his own good and seemed to know it. "What are we arguing about, ladies?"

  He had changed into a camouflaged combat uniform that he must have taken from Tec's stores. He even wore a skin-tight, long-sleeved quick-dry shirt that accentuated his athletic form and wore a 9mm pistol in a shoulder holster. The Seagraves had been making themselves at home with Tec's stuff.

  "Aviation fuel," Angie said bitterly. "Or rather the lack of it."

  Jay grinned, his eyes flashing. "Then you're gonna love what we just found."

  Five minutes later, Angie stared in wonder at the barrels of JP-8 aviation fuel stacked in a side chamber near the garage. "What was Tec doing with aviation fuel?"

  "Follow me,"
Jay said, his smile even wider than before. He motioned for Angie and the other women to follow him, and they did, Angie's confusion mounting. "There's way more stockpiled here than we realized," Jay said as he led them down another corridor and into yet a third stairwell, this one leading to the floor below.

  "I think maybe I'm beginning to understand," Tavi said. "He's always been there for us, always offering his services and never asking for payment. Morgan trusted him, but maybe she knew who Q really was. I think she knew a lot more than she let on about Tec and Q—but the U.S. government must have also known about Q. That's why all the monitoring gear is here, why the site was built over the Black Pool."

  "I think you're right," Erin said. "Whatever Project Grendel is, it's gotta be about the dragon. They were either studying him or working with him—it—in secret." She sighed, shaking her head. "Hell, I'm just pulling this out of my butt," she added sheepishly.

  "I think you're right," Angie added. "Quetzalcoatl is a being of magic, immensely powerful and much more intelligent than us. God only knows how old he is, how long he's been here. Maybe he made a bargain with the U.S. government."

  "I think so," Tavi said. "And after the Awakening, when everything collapsed, I think Tec took over this site and began stockpiling equipment."

  "He's been stockpiling equipment since long before the Awakening," said Jay as he opened the door at the bottom of the stairwell for the three women.

  Angie and the others walked into a massive storeroom, the ceiling thirty feet high at least and filled with crates of equipment. There was even a forklift sitting nearby, now covered in dust. But in the center of the storeroom were two partially assembled UH-60 Blackhawk transport helicopters missing only the rotors.

  Erin stopped in her tracks. "You've got to be shitting me."

  "That far wall is actually a pair of hangar doors," Jay said. "Must open up on the eastern side of the mountain. If these things were operational, Casey could fly us out of here." He stood in place, smiling, his hand on his hip as he stared at the aircraft. "Hell of a setup this Tec dude had. Too bad Rowan says we can't keep it."

  Understanding suddenly coursed through Angie, raising the hairs on the back of her neck. "He knew about the Awakening before it happened." Her voice rose sharply. "Tec knew the dragons were planning on breaking the Fey Sleep and reawakening humanity to magic. And if the U.S. government gave him helicopters and all this gear, then they knew about it as well—or at least a part of the government, those who knew about Project Grendel. Could this all have been compartmentalized in some way, like a special covert organization?"

  Erin's eyes widened. "If he knew the Awakening was coming, then he knew the collapse was coming as well. All those people…"

  "We don't have time to pull on all these strings just now," Angie said. "If we're going to save Tec and Constance, then we need to shelve these questions—for now." But if we find him, I’m sure as hell going to ask him.

  Erin nodded, her face pale. She looked to her brother. "What does Casey say about these aircraft?"

  "In time, if he had help from people who worked as helicopter mechanics before the Awakening, then he might get them into the air again, but it would take weeks."

  "We don't have weeks," Angie said. She turned to Tavi. "It's all up to you now. Are you sure you can do this?"

  Tavi looked uncertain, but she nodded. "In the absence of Morgan, I'm in charge of the Brujas Fantasmas. That may not matter if General Gálvez has already given the Shrike back to the Commonwealth. And if he's still in Canyon City…"

  "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Angie said. "Let's gear up."

  In the end, they decided to take both an armored vehicle and a cargo truck, its bed loaded with aviation fuel. Rowan would drive the armored vehicle while Casey drove the transport. It took several more hours to get everything ready, and the sun was now setting. We're running out of time, Angie mused. Or rather, Tec was running out of time.

  Angie, sitting in the armored vehicle, had made one last trip to the Black Pool, filling up an entire small backpack with water bottles. She had been terrified the dragon would burst out of the water again, but nothing had stirred on the surface of the underground pool. The small pack holding the water bottles was in the back of the truck. She just prayed she'd get the chance to use them to heal Tec.

  Everyone wore tactical load-bearing vests and lightweight helmets to which they had attached NVGs, including the Seagraves. Rowan said they couldn’t see in complete darkness; just like wolves, they needed some ambient light, and Zolin was underground. Each also carried a silenced sub-gun and had filled their vests with spare magazines and grenades. Rowan had even found small tactical radios with bone-induction microphones so they could communicate with whispers. Erin had traded her Winchester for a futuristic-looking bolt-action scoped rifle she had found. Angie had never even seen a rifle like this, but Erin was confident she could use it and had even attached a foot-long sound suppressor to its barrel. Tec really did have everything down here. They were at least as well armed and equipped as they had been in the Home Guard.

  Erin had even found what had to be the room Tec had slept in when he was here and rooted about his belongings, sniffing odd items before settling on a scarf, a shemagh, and stuffing it into her pocket. When Angie had stared at her, the other woman had only winked and hurried away.

  Rowan idled the armored truck at the base of the ramp leading out of the bunker. The transport truck with Casey and Jay was behind him.

  "How long?" Angie asked from where she sat behind Rowan and next to Tavi. Erin sat up front in the passenger seat.

  "To Canyon City, a couple of hours, no more," Rowan answered. "Unless we run into Ferals again." He sighed, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. "We just escaped, and now we're driving back in. This seems like a really bad idea."

  "It'll be fine," Tavi insisted. "Besides, we're only going as far as the airfield, not the city. When we get closer, I'll radio ahead and make sure they know we're friendlies."

  "Friendlies?" Rowan asked in disbelief. "Last night, we were your most wanted. Now we're friends?"

  "You help us save Morgan, and we'll put up statues of you."

  Rowan put the engine in gear and began to slowly drive up the ramp. "I'll settle for not shooting us."

  The throaty engine rumbled, echoing off the ramp walls as the vehicle edged up the steep incline, coming out in the ruins of an old corrugated-steel warehouse, now just a shell. Rowan edged his way toward the exit, slowly driving over rubble that he couldn't avoid. Casey and Jay followed in the cargo truck. When Rowan reached the warehouse's open hangar doors, he stomped on the brakes, coming to a jarring halt.

  "Oh shit," he said softly, his gaze locked ahead of them.

  Blocking the way was a troop of elven warriors on horseback, all wearing the black-and-red mail armor and molded Starsheen cuirasses of the Phoenix Guard. The elves watched them dispassionately, their eyes hidden beneath their conical helmets. Then their ranks parted, and a pair of mounted elves rode through.

  Angie leaned forward, peering intently at the two riders. One of them wore a gleaming silver full-face helmet with a red lionlike mane. It could only be Lance Commander Wyn Renna, the queen's personal bodyguard. The other rider wore a cape with the hood up over her face.

  "My god," she whispered, shivers coursing through her. "Is that—"

  Queen Elenaril Cloudborn lowered her hood.

  Chapter 37

  The setting sun bathed Queen Elenaril, Wyn Renna, and the elven warriors. Angie, excitement washing through her, leaned forward from the truck’s rear seat, using her hand to block the light.

  "Are there strings on my back?" Rowan asked. "Because I'm pretty sure we’ve been played. What do you want me to do, Angie? I'm way out of my element here."

  She had lived among the Fey in Fresno for years. If there was an expert, it was her, but she sure as hell didn't feel like it at this moment. "Do nothing," she finally said.

&n
bsp; "Do you think she ... knew?" Tavi asked, her voice faltering.

  Angie didn't have to ask. Tavi was wondering whether Elenaril knew Q was Quetzalcoatl, the winged serpent, a great dragon. When Char had spoken of Tec's mysterious master, she said she wouldn’t oppose him, which must have meant Char knew he was a dragon, which meant Elenaril probably knew as well. The Fey kept secrets like squirrels hoarded nuts.

  "She knew. That’s why she sent us here."

  Angie opened the armored vehicle's passenger door and stepped out. She heard the other door open as Erin climbed out as well, followed moments later by Tavi and Rowan. In the truck behind them, Casey stuck his head out the window. "What are we doing?" he asked calmly.

  "Be cool," Angie said, holding her hands up as she approached the elves. Her assault rifle hung by its tactical sling, and Nightfall rested against her hip, but she kept both hands away from her weapons. She stopped several paces before the elven queen and her guard commander and bowed. "A strange meeting, your majesty."

  Queen Elenaril smiled, her large, almond-shaped eyes catching the fading light. She wore mail armor beneath her cloak and carried a curved elven dueling sword. "Greetings, Angela. I assume you have met the master beneath the mountain?"

  "We have," she said simply, offering no further information. She could be just as coy.

  Rowan, Erin, and Tavi edged closer, now standing just behind Angie.

  "You are angry with me," Queen Elenaril noted. "This is fair. I was less than open with you."

  "You knew about Quetzalcoatl?"

  "I suspected Tec's master was the legendary winged serpent."

  "Why not warn us?"

  "Would you have come had you known a great dragon lived here?"

  "No. Not in a thousand years."

  The elven queen inclined her head, her strange eyes considering Angie and the others. "I will admit, I was not certain the great wyrm resided here, but I had cause to suspect it might be so. It is dangerous to know too much about them—particularly where they lair."